The author argues that we must build alliances not on ethnicity or gender, but on truth.

I HAVE COME home from a long stay in Mexico to find – because of the presidential campaign, and especially because of the Obama/Clinton race for the Democratic nomination - a new country existing alongside the old. On any given day we, collectively, become the Goddess of the Three Directions and can look back into the past, look at ourselves just where we are, and take a glance, as well, into the future. It is a space with which I am familiar.

(...)When I have supported white people, men and women, it was because I thought them the best possible people to do whatever the job required. Nothing else would have occurred to me. If Obama were in any sense mediocre, he would be forgotten by now. He is, in fact, a remarkable human being, not perfect but humanly stunning, like King was and like Mandela is. We look at him, as we looked at them, and are glad to be of our species. He is the change America has been trying desperately and for centuries to hide, ignore, kill. The change America must have if we are to convince the rest of the world that we care about people other than our (white) selves.(...)

A great piece!

[ 29 March 2008: Message edited by: martin dufresne ]

I admire Tom Hayden and Barbara Ehrenreich, solidly left but non-Communist, for example, who are co-authors of this piece:

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All American progressives should unite for Barack Obama. We descend from the proud tradition of independent social movements that have made America a more just and democratic country. We believe that the movement today supporting Barack Obama continues this great tradition of grassroots participation, drawing millions of people out of apathy and into participation in the decisions that affect all our lives.

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We intend to join and engage with our brothers and sisters in the vast rainbow of social movements to come together in support of Obama's unprecedented campaign and candidacy. Even though it is candidate-centered, there is no doubt that the campaign is a social movement, one greater than the candidate himself ever imagined.

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Obama's March 18 speech on racism was as great a speech as ever given by a presidential candidate, revealing a philosophical depth, personal authenticity, and political intelligence that should convince any but the hardest of ideologues that he carries unmatched leadership potentials for overcoming the divide-and-conquer tactics that have sundered Americans since the first slaves arrived here in chains.

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Obama's March 18 speech on racism was as great a speech as ever given by a presidential candidate, revealing a philosophical depth, personal authenticity, and political intelligence that should convince any but the hardest of ideologues that he carries unmatched leadership potentials for overcoming the divide-and-conquer tactics that have sundered Americans since the first slaves arrived here in chains.

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It reminds me of those babblers who say that Obama represents "hope".

Someone should write a book analyzing this phenomenon. I propose the title:

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Over the past couple of years I've had hundreds of encounters with reading Americans -- and by encounters I mean conversations, not falling off chairs -- which is to say book loving, thinking people like the Northumberland librarian, people of every stripe. They have ranged from the good ole boy Texas electrician who took me to a real smoke choked pool-table-and-concrete-floor joint to professors of literature and Washington policy wonks who actually use the little red cocktail napkin that accompanies their martinis.

During this period I have noticed a change in the nature of discussion with these previously unmet readers. Four years ago, much of it centered on the outrageousness of the Bush administration, the stomach turning criminality of the Iraq War, Cheney The Fanged Man of Wax, with a little rage at our planetary ecocide thrown into the mix. In other words, about what you might expect from a baby roasting alien commie readership such as mine, made up of such folks as school teachers, union members, sociology profs and other congenital malcontents, the sort of people who resent things like student strip searches in public high schools (HR 5295, The Student Teacher Safety Act of 2006, which, to its credit, at least bans cavity searches by faculty. You gotta be a cop to do that in our public schools) and other subversive types.

Lately though, I don't hear so much outrage. In fact, the readers seem to be suffering from what someone aptly called "rage fatigue." Which is another way of saying the bastards have simply worn us out. And it's true.

I am not kidding when I say rage fatigue victims have fallen into an ongoing mid-level depression. (Looks to me like the whole country has, but then I'm no mental health expert.) The less depressed victims can be found lurking near the edges of the Obama cult, consoling themselves that a soothing and/or charismatic orator is better than nothing.

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Jesus, Jeff...you STILL can't give the redbaiting a rest?

The fact is, communism is irrelevant to any left politics in North America, and you know it.

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Without really trying, in fact, without committing a single purposeful act, Black America has succeeded in rendering itself totally irrelevant this election season. About 90 percent of Black America has allied itself with a candidate that never promised them a damn thing. Four years ago, virtually nobody outside Chicago had ever heard of Barack Obama. He was packaged and presented by the Democratic National Convention in August, 2004 as the New Black Look and Attitude of the Party - a guy who would show both rows of teeth while claiming: "there is no Hispanic America, there is no Black America, there is no white America; there is only the United States of America."

Obama's speech writers didn't pen those lines for you (Black folks). These were the first of many messages to whites, especially males, that were meant to convey that Obama would do his utmost to downplay race as a subject of political discourse. The effect of this strategy would be to marginalize Blacks as a group while focusing attention on Obama as an individual. But despite the clear contradictions, millions of Blacks began to vicariously feel powerful because of Obama's actual location in the bosom of real power. Of course, Obama didn't get his power from you (Black folks), but from Goldman Sachs and other rich whites.

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But African Americans would make themselves even more irrelevant by voting for a third-party presidential ticket that was doomed to lose badly.

What is the source of this pressure of which you speak? And how is it delivered?

Through the ballot box? And after the election, is there some other way that black workers have of putting pressure on their president?

No one who votes third-party for president will be in any position to influence anything. Ever again.

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Originally posted by Ken Burch:
Everyone who gets out and votes Democratic, AND everyone who takes it to the streets.

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And "taking it to the streets" is a pressure tactic that can be used on any President. So why aren't all you "progressive Americans" taking it to the streets right now?

On what basis would Obama be any more susceptible to pressure from street demonstrations than any other President?

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No one who votes third-party for president will be in any position to influence anything. Ever again.

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It's not possible to build third parties the way it is in Canada. You've been spoiled by how easy it was to grow the CCF/NDP.

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Lately though, I don't hear so much outrage. In fact, the readers seem to be suffering from what someone aptly called "rage fatigue." Which is another way of saying the bastards have simply worn us out. And it's true.

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No, it isn't. What you're seeing in the US is very interesting; the population is about to react to the Bush years by lurching much farther to the left than anyone would have guessed a few years ago.

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Originally posted by Ken Burch:
Everyone who gets out and votes Democratic, AND everyone who takes it to the streets.

No one who votes third-party for president will be in any position to influence anything. Ever again.

It's not possible to build third parties the way it is in Canada. You've been spoiled by how easy it was to grow the CCF/NDP.

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On to Ottawa

Regina Manifesto

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Originally posted by WalkLeft:
They've stopped yelling and marching, but they're not collapsing into apathy, as the above quote suggests: instead, they're organizing, and doing so very very effectively.

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The point of the quote from the article was that Obama's power base is not in the black population, but in the rich whites who fund the Democratic Party and engineered his accession to front-runner status from recent obscurity.

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Well, we know that Obama is getting money from far more than "rich whites". In March, 2008, alone, ONE MONTH, Obama had donations from FOUR HUNDRED AND FORTY TWO THOUSAND people.

His power base isn't "in the black community"? Of course not, since no the black community is not powerful enough, on its own, to select a President, or to fund a campaign. Having that as your "power base" is a guarantee that you will fail to achieve national political power.

Obama has achieved a very formidable coalition of blacks and whites, something the far left-o-sphere hasn't achieved anywhere, ever.

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Originally posted by kropotkin1951:

There was no easy path that led to the CCF/NDP.

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Well, maybe not "easy", but sure as hell at least "possible".

There was never the mortal risk in Canada, as there is in the U.S., of third-party efforts leaving the extreme right-wing in power for the rest of eternity.

You don't understand how OUR electoral system works. Everyone who does knows that electoral reform needs to come first, and needs to be forced from the bottom up. And everyone who understands American politics knows that third-party presidential campaigns will ALWAYS be futile and always only attract votes from white kids in espresso bars until electoral reform is achieved.

Changing the U.S. voting system is what matters first. Why do some people here constantly dismiss that?

Third party presidential campaigns while the Electoral College remains in place can lead to nothing but permanent right-wing Republican dominance. And yes, that is worse than alternation with the Democrats, inadequate as they are. Third-party efforts in the U.S. can only be undertaken at this point, at least with any chance of avoiding futility, on lower-ticket races.

Third-party presidential candidates get no media attention.

They draw no meaningful crowds anymore.

They have no effect on the debate. Ralph Nader's 2004 campaign is universally recognized in the U.S. as having been totally irrelevant and pointless.

Like the rest of the left project, third parties can only be built from below, in down-ticket races.

And Jeff, we've all repeatedly proven to you that the Communist Party has not infiltrated and taken over babble. Why do you persist in redbaiting when you've been told, over and over again, to give it a rest?

Communism will never be part of the North American left again. Nobody here IS a Communist.

Just stop, willya?
[ 04 April 2008: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

[ 04 April 2008: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

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Originally posted by M. Spector:
What exactly are they "organizing"? Tea parties for Obama? Fundraisers for the Democratic Party?

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I don't know that it would necessarily qualify as organizing but it's true that the Democratic turnout in a lot of the primaries has been much bigger than anticipated and in some cases has set records.

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Originally posted by Ken Burch:
And Jeff, we've all repeatedly proven to you that the Communist Party has not infiltrated and taken over babble. Why do you persist in redbaiting when you've been told, over and over again, to give it a rest?

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Originally posted by Ken Burch:
Everyone who gets out and votes Democratic, AND everyone who takes it to the streets.

No one who votes third-party for president will be in any position to influence anything. Ever again.

It's not possible to build third parties the way it is in Canada. You've been spoiled by how easy it was to grow the CCF/NDP.

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Ken, it was this kind of logic that lead most of the voters who, in 1948 said they were going to vote for Progressive Party candidate Henry Wallce, to vote for Truman instead. Progressive Americans could have made the Progressive Party a viable third party option in 1948, but this kind of logic prevented it. Granted, Truman would have lost the election, but that would have been a worthwile price to pay for the creation of a viable third-party to the left of the Democrats.

I'm not saying don't vote third-party under any circumstances(and in times like the 1900 to 1920 period, where there no differences at all between the Dems and the GOP, except on the issues where the Dems were to the GOP's RIGHT, a case could be made for it even presidentially). What I'm talking about is the futility of backing ANOTHER Nader-type campaign.

I backed two. We achieved nothing. End of discussion.

A mass movement for electoral reform, using the initiative process and grass roots pressure from below, is what's needed to open the U.S. political system. The model would be the Civil Rights movement of the 60's or the antiwar movements of various times, movements which pushed radical ideas both major parties instinctively rejected, but were able to achieve many of their goals nonetheless through mobilization.

That's a strategy that's been proven to work.

And much as I admire the 1948 Progressive campaign in the U.S.(a campaign in which many people I deeply admire, such as Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Paul Robeson, and progressive and Radical people of many stripes, took part in)the immediate result of that campaign was triumph of McCarthyism and the blacklist. For the next fifteen years, politics was a reactionary dead zone in the U.S.

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Originally posted by Left Turn:
I don't think a presidential election can prouce a viable third party when the Republicans are in power. However, there is a chance that at some point in the future a presidential election could produce a viable third party if the Democrats are in power. Unfortunately, your logic mitigates against it ever happening.

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Once you're on the merry-go-round, it's hard to jump off.

A presidential campaign, on the other hand would be useless in creating such a party. It would cost a party with little money too much to make any sort of an effort, and would inevitably end up being just as useless as all the campaigns Gus Hall or the SWP or any of the other minor parties that run presidential candidates are.

Why are you so obstinate about forming a third party in the less effective way possible?

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The millions of people supporting him will just laugh, once again.

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Originally posted by Ken Burch:
OK, those are good conditions for forming such a party. From the ground up. Fighting in winnable races.

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I don't have to build the third party myself. There are others who are committed to doing it. And as I'm a registered Dem, I don't think it's actually appropriate to be working on that project myself, though I deeply respect those who do.

All I've really been trying to do is discuss a workable strategy to the goal, a strategy you continually mock and dismiss in favor of a strategy(a third-party presidential campaign)that has proven, over and over again, to be hopeless endeavor and a waste of minor-party resources.

I don't consider you a "counterrevolutionary sellout". Before you can be that, you have to be a revolutionary. You've got nothing to sell out.

[ 06 April 2008: Message edited by: M. Spector ]

And my principles are the principles of the left. I don't have to work for them the way you work for them to prove that.

Building the left is the point. This doesn't have to require the destruction of the Democrats. A third party isn't the only possible method.

Why are you such an absolutist on this question?

[ 06 April 2008: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

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Originally posted by Ken Burch:
Why are you such an absolutist on this question?

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So you're more interested in supporting the Democrats than building a non-capitalist party, which is work for other people to do, not you.

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Here's the problem with "building a non-capitalist party", as you say you want to do:

No one is interested.

This has been the case in North America since the end of World War II, the Stalinist purges, the gulag, etc.

You can rail all you like about the fact that people are just not interested in supporting the "non-capitalist party" you support but cannot name. But it's not gonna change.

So, for those who grant some legitimacy to the opinions of the citizens of this country, and the US as well, imposing a top-down "non-capitalist" structure is a non-starter.

There is only one viable solution to these inevitable turn of events - nationalization and trade barriers. More than this will be needed because there will be no "free market" jobs left for North Americans anywhere near what is required to meet current lifestyles.

ERGO the only solution will be some form of state subsidy and work sharing.

Why then not call it what it will be - democratic socialism?

Marxian analysis is not a point of view or a dogma. It is a scientific method for predicting macro human behaviour. Economics will not be altered by Obama's charm or Hilary's resolve. Stae intervention will be required.

But the establishment is so entrenched in its opposition to this type of thing that it is unlikely it will happen even with the first black president of the US empire unless he too proclaims himself a socialist.

Is he one? I doubt it.

Furthermore the idea that civil rights, and the way that a society manages dissent is irrefutably linked to the economic system applied by the society is highly dubious. In fact, an overview of the history of the last 100 years indicates basicly that there is very little correlation between increased capitalism and more human rights and vis versa.

[ 07 April 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]

"man made money to buy other men...and we're lost in the wilderness."

Where Spector and I disagree is on tactics.

My approach is based on creating space by getting the most reactionary party out of power first, then using the space thus created to build radical movements.

I'm not blindly loyal to the Democrats at all levels. I'm only talking, really, about presidential politics. In that race, as history has shown, third-party activity has been futile.

It needs to come from the bottom up. I support those who want to build it from the bottom up, and will help them in such ways as I can.

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Originally posted by Ken Burch:
I'm not against building a non-capitalist party.

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The centrality and the necessity of independent working class political action has been an elementary tenet of working class politics in both your country and mine for the last century. That's not just Marxism; it's been recognized by social democrats in Canada since before the founding of the CCF. The Canadian labour movement, unlike the US one, long ago recognized the need to break with the capitalist parties and pursue an independent political course. How many more decades need to pass before you recognize this elementary truth?

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Where Spector and I disagree is on tactics.

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My approach is based on creating space by getting the most reactionary party out of power first, then using the space thus created to build radical movements.

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In fact, to anybody who takes your approach seriously and tries to build a non-capitalist party, you would say they are wasting their time and urge them to vote Democrat. So you are a hypocrite into the bargain.

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I'm not blindly loyal to the Democrats at all levels. I'm only talking, really, about presidential politics. In that race, as history has shown, third-party activity has been futile.

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It needs to come from the bottom up. I support those who want to build it from the bottom up, and will help them in such ways as I can.

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I suppose that's just as well, actually; why would anybody take you seriously if you actually did say you wanted to try and build an anti-capitalist party?

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But Spector's obsession with focusing on destroying the Democratic Party above all other goals and objectives doesn't serve the left at all.

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