Bad habit, facebook - papers to clean up, things to write, but one further word on the political scene. None of our groups today - ISL,SP, RCP, WWP, CP, etc. has any real power - that is a hard and painful fact which I would love to see change. But if we go back to the 1930s the Communist Party and the Socialist Party both had real clout, real ties into the labor movement, the civil rights movement. For better or worse, those days were ended completely by the 1950s. And not one of the sects - no matter, Quentin, how nicely printed their signs are - really has the force needed today.. Bad as the Democratic Party is, the various movements - elderly, labor, civil rights, gay, women - look to the Democratic Party and tend to function in and around it. There are exceptions - Bernie Sanders (who is not so hot on the military/industrial complex) was able to win in Vermont outside the two parties. But that is the exception. I do NOT want to work in the Democratic Party, but I know that ifI want to build a coalition around something in New York City, I will find myself working with progressive Democrats at the local level as well as with the Greens, the pacifists, and socialists. If you asked the majority of people in the huge, really important Civil Rights or Vietnam Peace movements which political party they looked to, they would have said the Democrats. That is too bad - we need independent electoral action. I dont think the Communist Party position should have endorse Obama, but I understand why they did. I hope this clears up the question of whether I want to work IN the Democratic Party - NO I do not. I dont, in fact, think we should spend lots of energy running candidates unless they iether can win (as the SP member who holds local office in New Jersey, or the socialist who won in Seattle, or unless they can use the campaign to really rally folks around issues. Most of our work should be on the issues, on a range of actions outside the electoral field. I think the Green campaign are important but tha doest mean I think the Green Party is the answer (sadly, I dont think it is).
Posted on: Thu, 21 Aug 2014 00:25:23 +0000
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