VotePSL -- Frances Villar for Mayor of New York!

[Kassad]

http://www.washingtoninformer.com/wi-web/images/stories/front-page/09-03-26/A1-Photo---War-Protest---Khlaid-600x400.jpg
Frances Villar, the Party for Socialism and Liberation's candidate for Mayor of New York City, protesting at the March 21st March on the Pentagon. (I'm pretty sure that's my PSL sign behind her, but I must've been blocked. -- Kassad)


What the Frances Villar for Mayor (PSL) 2009 Campaign Stands For

The billionaires are going to pay for this crisis! They created the crisis—now they should be the ones to pay for it. Tax Wall Street and the big landlords.


People before banks! The city currently pays $5 billion every year to the banks in debt payments—before it ever makes it to the city budget. We are calling for the city to put the banks at the back of the line.


Every New Yorker has a right to a job!


New York City should be an eviction-free zone. No foreclosures or evictions in the city.


Education is a right. Make sure every child in the city has a safe and modern classroom. Raise the salary for every public school teacher in the city, and make parents have a real say in their children’s curriculum. CUNY should be free.
Student and mother will challenge billionaire Bloomberg for mayor


Frances Villar, a 26-year-old mother of two and City University of New York student, will challenge New York City’s richest man in the 2009 New York City mayoral race. Villar will run on the Socialism and Liberation ticket.

"In the middle of the worst economic crisis our country has seen in decades, New York City deserves a candidate that speaks in the name of poor and working people, not for the billionaires,” Villar announced.

“My campaign will put the issues of unemployment, evictions, education and police brutality as the first order of business for the city to tackle—not the interests of the banks and billionaires,” she continued. “We live in the richest city in the country, but you would never know it by walking through the communities where most of us live.”

Villar is a student leader who has worked tirelessly against the city's and state’s efforts to make CUNY students pay for the budget crisis. She is the president of her building’s tenants association. She has organized against the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and against the occupation of Palestine.

The Party for Socialism and Liberation was formed in 2004. The PSL fielded presidential candidates Gloria La Riva and Eugene Puryear in the 2008 elections, and were on the ballot in 12 states, including New York.

Villar formally announced her campaign at a Saturday, May 23 PSL Public Conference under the banner, “Billionaires, your time is up—and we don’t just mean Bloomberg."

www.VotePSL.org (http://www.VotePSL.org)

[pbond123]

Politicians..

[Kassad]

Politicians..

Right. A revolutionary socialist calling for the destruction of capitalism and an end to militaristic hegemony is such a politician. :rolleyes:

[Blackscare]

Agreed with Kassad. What was your point there pbond123?



Anyway, I stumbled on this last night and I think it's great. I liked her speech. Hopefully this will raise consciousness among the working poor of the city and show Bloomberg that the millions of residents of the city are more important than a minuscule number of businessmen.



And I have to say, I like that she actually sounds a lot more like your average New Yorker than the typical politicians we've had.

[mykittyhasaboner]

Politicians..

What a fucking pointless comment; this should be trashed.

----

As for Frances Villar, its very bold to run for Mayor on a socialist ticket, especially in New York. It's an ambitious goal, to be elected, but I wish all the best of luck to her and the PSL's efforts towards victory.

[Kassad]

Agreed with Kassad. What was your point there pbond123?


What about the above is so bad?

I actually just realized that his organization also runs candidates, therefore his statement was not only idiotic, but it was hypocritical as well.

[ls]

Reminds me of this http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=14396. PSL do very much remind me of the UK SWP/RESPECT, as does ANSWER of STWC.

[Lolshevik]

This is great news. I wish Frances Villar the best of luck in the campaign.

[Kassad]

Reminds me of this http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=14396. PSL do very much remind me of the UK SWP/RESPECT, as does ANSWER of STWC.

I hear that a lot. Of course, if you look at the debates I have with Socialist Workers Party (UK) members, you'd see that we have quite a different ideological line. They're a part of the International Socialist Tendency and if they're anything like the International Socialist Organization, then they have a lot of ideological aspects to develop.

[Jack]

This just announced: I, Jack, will be running for Mayor of New York as well

My Platform:

*Thing that will never be implemented because I will lose A

*Thing that will never be implemented because I will lose B

*Thing that will never be implemented because I will lose C

Jack is also a revolutionary, who's running for an office just to show how uber-revolutionary he is! The real revolution comes at the ballot box, comrades!

[Kassad]

This just announced: I, Jack, will be running for Mayor of New York as well

My Platform:

*Thing that will never be implemented because I will lose A

*Thing that will never be implemented because I will lose B

*Thing that will never be implemented because I will lose C

Jack is also a revolutionary, who's running for an office just to show how uber-revolutionary he is! The real revolution comes at the ballot box, comrades!

I've had to give so much negative reputation today because of posts like this. Jack, we don't expect to win. We are trying to use elections as a means of raising awareness about socialism and the construction of our party. We're using the election to bring important issues to the table, which all of our campaigns have done so far since 2008. Our rapidly increasing numbers have shown that our strategy is working very well, which is much more than any sectarian Anarchists can say. While you're busy trying to split up our anti-war demonstrations and kicking Marxist parties out of your elitist bookfairs, we are struggling for socialism. I'm sorry that sticks in your craw.

[Jack]

I've had to give so much negative reputation today because of posts like this. Jack, we don't expect to win. We are trying to use elections as a means of raising awareness about socialism and the construction of our party. We're using the election to bring mportant issues to the table, which all of our campaigns have done so far since 2008. Our rapidly increasing numbers have shown that our strategy is working very well, which is much more than any sectarian Anarchists can say. While you're busy trying to split up our anti-war demonstrations and kicking Marxist parties out of your elitist bookfairs, we are struggling for socialism. I'm sorry that sticks in your craw.

That's a wonderful excuse... But it's still betraying your principles of being "revolutionary" (if the PSL ever had that capability). At least us "sectarian anarchists" you always hammer on about because of the actions of 5 anarchists at a bookfair 3000 miles away from me don't betray our principles and start an Anarchist Party. Even if we are "sectarian" for not falling in line with the various "vanguard parties" that you seem to be so fond of.

Speaking of being "sectarian", why the split with the WWP, and why are there so many Bolshi-parties if you aren't "sectarian".

[Kassad]

That's a wonderful excuse... But it's still betraying your principles of being "revolutionary" (if the PSL ever had that capability). At least us "sectarian anarchists" you always hammer on about because of the actions of 5 anarchists at a bookfair 3000 miles away from me don't betray our principles and start an Anarchist Party. Even if we are "sectarian" for not falling in line with the various "vanguard parties" that you seem to be so fond of.

Speaking of being "sectarian", why the split with the WWP, and why are there so many Bolshi-parties if you aren't "sectarian".

The split with Workers World was due to Workers World's recent treading towards reformism, as shown by their endorsement of a capitalist candidate and their excitement with Obama's election. They also fail to have activist presence. Specifics are kept to ourselves because we don't want massive disputes to arise, since we still view Workers World as a dedicated group of individuals. There are a lot of parties, just like there are a lot of different Anarchist organizations worldwide. We have different ideological lines and different means of struggle.

[Blackscare]

State and Revolution.:rolleyes:


Maybe you didn't read Kassad's post (the one right above yours). The PSL doesn't expect to win. A radical socialist party using an election to raise public awareness is a lot different from say, an established and entrenched European Social-Democrat party controlling government.

Also, a Marx quote does not equal an argument-winning post worthy of the 'ole eye-roll emote ;)

[Jack]

The split with Workers World was due to Workers World's recent treading towards reformism, as shown by their endorsement of a capitalist candidate and their excitement with Obama's election. They also fail to have activist presence. Specifics are kept to ourselves because we don't want massive disputes to arise, since we still view Workers World as a dedicated group of individuals. There are a lot of parties, just like there are a lot of different Anarchist organizations worldwide. We have different ideological lines and different means of struggle.

But isn't working with people who use different tactics a main part of being anti-sectarian?

I'll admit I'm sectarian, and I have no problem with that. It doesn't stop me from working with people of other ideologies, I just won't be in the same group with them outside of single-issue campaigns (like my Youth Peace organization, which is anti-war and anti-militarist, it doesn't dive into support for any ideology beyond that, though it is left wing just because all its membership is either anarchists like me an its founder, and f*ing liberals).

[Blackscare]

That's a wonderful excuse... But it's still betraying your principles of being "revolutionary" (if the PSL ever had that capability). At least us "sectarian anarchists" you always hammer on about because of the actions of 5 anarchists at a bookfair 3000 miles away from me don't betray our principles and start an Anarchist Party. Even if we are "sectarian" for not falling in line with the various "vanguard parties" that you seem to be so fond of.

Speaking of being "sectarian", why the split with the WWP, and why are there so many Bolshi-parties if you aren't "sectarian".



Jack, I'm a libertarian (if not anarchist anymore, because in part of tripe like this), I certainly don't support everything that the PSL or other such parties stand for, and I think you're being very sectarian. They're simply using an election as a platform for spreading their message. Get over yourself and stop baiting pointless arguments.

Edit:

Just read that you freely admit that you're sectarian. In that case, please just shut up because you're being entirely unproductive and obnoxious (that's why most of us don't like sectarianism, btw).

[Jack]

Also, a Marx quote does not equal an argument-winning post worthy of the 'ole eye-roll emote ;)

If you name your ideology after someone, you should be accept what they say and do. Just like if I called myself an anarcho-TheGuysWhoThreWaterOnTheRCPist, I would have to answer for the "sectarians" at the Anarchist Bookfair and accept what they did and said, that should apply to Marxists.

[Kassad]

But isn't working with people who use different tactics a main part of being anti-sectarian?

I'll admit I'm sectarian, and I have no problem with that. It doesn't stop me from working with people of other ideologies, I just won't be in the same group with them outside of single-issue campaigns (like my Youth Peace organization, which is anti-war and anti-militarist, it doesn't dive into support for any ideology beyond that, though it is left wing just because all its membership is either anarchists like me an its founder, and f*ing liberals).

You've obviously never been to an ANSWER protest before. If you had, you'd see that there is a booth for just about every communist and progressive organization you can name. In Washington back in March, I saw Workers World, International Marxist Tendency, International Socialist Organization, Revolutionary Communist Party, Spartacist League, World Can't Wait, Code Pink and many more. So very sectarian we are. If you know the recent history of the anti-war movement, you'd see that United for Peace and Justice split with us, so it isn't us who's being sectarian here. I'll be sure to let the ANSWER organizers know that the way to be truly revolutionary is to kick people out. Next time, it'll just be ANSWER and the Party for Socialism and Liberation. Kickin' it -- anarchist style!

[Jack]

You've obviously never been to an ANSWER protest before. If you had, you'd see that there is a booth for just about every communist and progressive organization you can name. In Washington back in March, I saw Workers World, International Marxist Tendency, International Socialist Organization, Revolutionary Communist Party, Spartacist League, World Can't Wait, Code Pink and many more. So very sectarian we are. If you know the recent history of the anti-war movement, you'd see that United for Peace and Justice split with us, so it isn't us who's being sectarian here. I'll be sure to let the ANSWER organizers know that the way to be truly revolutionary is to kick people out. Next time, it'll just be ANSWER and the Party for Socialism and Liberation. Kickin' it -- anarchist style!

Like I said, I have no problems working with other groups on single issue campaigns, but I do have a problem being in a group dominated by people who do not share my ideology. ANSWER is pretty much a single-issue (blah blah, racism and imperialism blah blah, my point still stands) group, and though I wouldn't be a member, I would not boycott any cooperation between my group and ANSWER; that was what I was trying to say until you went ARRRGH SECTARIAN ARRRGH!

I oppose ANSWER because it pretty much was formed as a front for the WWP, and was then taken in the split by the PSL, and I'm no fan of front organizations. I would not join ANSWER as an individual, but would possibly work with it with a group, but never join it.

[Kassad]

Like I said, I have no problems working with other groups on single issue campaigns, but I do have a problem being in a group dominated by people who do not share my ideology. ANSWER is pretty much a single-issue (blah blah, racism and imperialism blah blah, my point still stands) group, and though I wouldn't be a member, I would not boycott any cooperation between my group and ANSWER; that was what I was trying to say until you went ARRRGH SECTARIAN ARRRGH!

I oppose ANSWER because it pretty much was formed as a front for the WWP, and was then taken in the split by the PSL, and I'm no fan of front organizations. I would not join ANSWER as an individual, but would possibly work with it with a group, but never join it.

Let's see now. ANSWER demonstrated to support Oscar Grant. They protested the killing of Troy Davis. They demontrate to Free the Cuban 5, the Jena 6, Leonard Peltier, Mumia Abu-Jamal and many more. They protest the occupation of Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine, as well as other military endeavors in Haiti, Pakistan, the Phillipines and Cuba. They endorse anti-capitalist conferences. They defend countries from imperialism. They rally to support immigrant rights and amnesty. They fight for unionizing rights and they protest banks and corporations that received bailouts.

Sounds single-issue, right?

[Blackscare]

If you name your ideology after someone, you should be accept what they say and do. Just like if I called myself an anarcho-TheGuysWhoThreWaterOnTheRCPist, I would have to answer for the "sectarians" at the Anarchist Bookfair and accept what they did and said, that should apply to Marxists.


Genius, Marxism is a mode of thought and a way of looking at history, it's not a specific revolutionary formula that applies to all places and times. Marx never intended for Marxist-orthodoxy to exist, instead he wanted to provide the philosophical/ideological foundation for movements to build upon as their unique situations called for.


So a Marx quote is not the be-all end-all for Marxists. Sometimes what he said doesn't apply to certain situations. For instance, in the above quote he was referring to a totally different situation than the one of the PSL in New York. While (for good reason) he was against reformist social-democrat parties taking control of government through elections, I think it's safe to say he wasn't referring to the tactic of using elections to raise awareness of a radical outlook without hope of actually winning.

[ls]

I hear that a lot. Of course, if you look at the debates I have with Socialist Workers Party (UK) members, you'd see that we have quite a different ideological line. They're a part of the International Socialist Tendency and if they're anything like the International Socialist Organization, then they have a lot of ideological aspects to develop.

You notice on the International Socialist Organization site there is a picture of the Socialist Worker pictured immediately (the UK SWP's publication).

A fair point in part, but you do realise that many SWPers on this site now have Trotskyist named as their tendency despite the fact they conflict with many many Trotskyists also on this site from various organisations. Also note that a few SWP members had marxist-leninist as their named tendency a while before.

I think that PSL and the UK SWP share a lot of points in common, mostly on the point of supposed anti-imperialism, in fact the UK SWP would pretty much at first glance appear to be hardcore marxist-leninists, maybe just maybe they are.

Oh well, at least I hear ANSWER coalition don't put stewards on their demos that cooperate with police, unlike StWC.

[Jack]

Let's see now. ANSWER demonstrated to support Oscar Grant. They protested the killing of Troy Davis. They demontrate to Free the Cuban 5, the Jena 6, Leonard Peltier, Mumia Abu-Jamal and many more. They protest the occupation of Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine, as well as other military endeavors in Haiti, Pakistan, the Phillipines and Cuba. They endorse anti-capitalist conferences. They defend countries from imperialism. They rally to support immigrant rights and amnesty. They fight for unionizing rights and they protest banks and corporations that received bailouts.

Sounds single-issue, right?

You know what I meant, I was speaking of them as not promoting any specific ideology (Marxism-Leninism, Anarchism, anything).

I've also been involved in campaigns concerning Mumia, the Jena 6, and Troy Davis as well as many other prisoners from my time in Amnesty International, do I get PSL cred?

[Revy]

I am not sure if the Socialist Party local there is running a candidate. They may decide not to - in which case, I will urge them to support Frances Villar.

[Revy]

You know what I meant, I was speaking of them as not promoting any specific ideology (Marxism-Leninism, Anarchism, anything).

I've also been involved in campaigns concerning Mumia, the Jena 6, and Troy Davis as well as many other prisoners from my time in Amnesty International, do I get PSL cred?

They are Leninist. I don't believe that they are Stalinist or Trotskyist though.

[Charles Xavier]

Much respect to the PSL. Ignore these reactos who think the struggle should be waged merely on a theoritical level instead of economic and political struggle. They are all on par with each other.

[Kassad]

http://www.pslweb.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=11297 ;)

What? Being critical of Stalin at times? What an atrocity.


They are Leninist. I don't believe that they are Stalinist or Trotskyist though.

That is correct.

[Kassad]

Its not exactly Stalin Society, is it?

Thats actually good, since you would lose every working class supporter you have.

Well, seeing that Revolutionary Communist Party, USA and Freedom Road Socialist Organization still have supporters, I'd say you're full of shit.

[PRC-UTE]

That's a wonderful excuse... But it's still betraying your principles of being "revolutionary" (if the PSL ever had that capability). At least us "sectarian anarchists" you always hammer on about because of the actions of 5 anarchists at a bookfair 3000 miles away from me don't betray our principles and start an Anarchist Party. Even if we are "sectarian" for not falling in line with the various "vanguard parties" that you seem to be so fond of.

Speaking of being "sectarian", why the split with the WWP, and why are there so many Bolshi-parties if you aren't "sectarian".

The difference between the PSL and the anarchists (at least the North American variety) is that the PSL has the potential to become a revolutionary force- by getting out there and making inroads with working class people who aren't already converted. Whereas the anarchists tend to despise anything that's not pure enough. In practice that means staying in your isolated political ghetto.

By all means, condemn the PSL for running candidates. It just shows how irrelevant anarchism usually is, outside of a few places like France, Spain and Australia.

[Kassad]

Why aren't you with them?

Too much focus on theory.
No activist presence.
Revolutionary Communist Party is basically just a newspaper and they fetishize Avakian.
Freedom Road is split and their numbers are dead.
Freedom Road has no branches.
Revolutionary Communist Party doesn't have material resources.
Freedom Road doesn't have material resources.
I could do this all day. Either way, the Party for Socialism and Liberation aligns to my ideology almost perfectly. I can't imagine why it would be necessary to work elsewhere.

[RedScare]

Interesting. I just hear more and more good things about PSL.

[Red Rebel]

Best of luck to Comrade Frances Villar in raising the class consciousness of the people in New York City. Also it is great to see the PSL getting more active on the East Coast.

[The Deepest Red]

If you name your ideology after someone, you should be accept what they say and do.

Proudhonists, Makhnovist movement, Durruti Column....

[Sam_b]

Thats actually good, since you would lose every working class supporter you have

I think some of the 'oh so pure' liberal left on here need to wake up and remember the fact that traditionally the most successful anticapitalist parties in history have been Marxist-Leninist, and still attract a fair what of support. If my memory serves me, didn't the "Stalinist" Communist Party of the Russian Federation come second in the (pretty)recent Presidential election?

Its more to do how the party operates on the surface and what it actually does. Working class people are more concerned with losing their jobs and facing eviction from their homes than someone in a party who mentions Stalin favourably.

As an aside, after reading more on the VotePSL website and hearing this woman speak I believe that Frances Villar is an excellent candidate. She's certainly not going to win, but I think she'll do a hell of a lot better than we think. Look out for a surprise!

[Pogue]

The difference between the PSL and the anarchists (at least the North American variety) is that the PSL has the potential to become a revolutionary force- by getting out there and making inroads with working class people who aren't already converted. Whereas the anarchists tend to despise anything that's not pure enough. In practice that means staying in your isolated political ghetto.

By all means, condemn the PSL for running candidates. It just shows how irrelevant anarchism usually is, outside of a few places like France, Spain and Australia.


I do love to see a fair, accurate and intelligent criticism of anarchism. Well done to you.

Obviously I don't agree with the idea of running in bourgeoisie elections. Sure, it gets your message out but from the opputunistic nature of Leninists groups in the present day and throughout history I highly doubt thats their sole aim when getting involved with these things. That and Leninism is an anti-worker ideology.

Aside from that it'd be interesting to see how this lady does in the election.

[Pogue]

I think some of the 'oh so pure' liberal left on here need to wake up and remember the fact that traditionally the most successful anticapitalist parties in history have been Marxist-Leninist, and still attract a fair what of support. If my memory serves me, didn't the "Stalinist" Communist Party of the Russian Federation come second in the (pretty)recent Presidential election?

Its more to do how the party operates on the surface and what it actually does. Working class people are more concerned with losing their jobs and facing eviction from their homes than someone in a party who mentions Stalin favourably.

As an aside, after reading more on the VotePSL website and hearing this woman speak I believe that Frances Villar is an excellent candidate. She's certainly not going to win, but I think she'll do a hell of a lot better than we think. Look out for a surprise!

Yes, your right. I wish us liberal lefties could be as ideologically coherent as to do such things as the SWP and advocate a vote for New Labour. Alas, we're too 'liberal' to support neo-liberal parties. Or maybe like the PSL we could support the suppresion of a movement against authoritarian capitalist regimes such as the Chinese dictatorship.

Shame, but I guess we all have our errors :crying:

:tt2:

[JimmyJazz]

State and Revolution.:rolleyes:


"The Commune," Marx wrote, "was to be a working, not a parliamentary, body, executive and legislative at the same time....

"Instead of deciding once in three or six years which member of the ruling class was to represent and repress [ver- and zertreten] the people in parliament, universal suffrage was to serve the people constituted in communes, as individual suffrage serves every other employer in the search for workers, foremen and accountants for his business."

Owing to the prevalence of social-chauvinism and opportunism, this remarkable criticism of parliamentarism, made in 1871, also belongs now to the "forgotten words" of Marxism. The professional Cabinet Ministers and parliamentarians, the traitors to the proletariat and the “practical” socialists of our day, have left all criticism of parliamentarism to the anarchists, and, on this wonderfully reasonable ground, they denounce all criticism of parliamentarism as “anarchism”!!

Here is Lenin's actual view (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/ch07.htm) on participation in bourgeois parliamentary elections (short version: he was in favor, and made fun of those that opposed it on principle).


Second, in the same pamphlet of the Frankfurt group of "Lefts", which we have already cited in detail, we read:

"... The millions of workers who still follow the policy of the Centre [the Catholic "Centre" Party] are counter-revolutionary. The rural proletarians provide the legions of counter-revolutionary troops." (Page 3 of the pamphlet.)

Everything goes to show that this statement is far too sweeping and exaggerated. But the basic fact set forth here is incontrovertible, and its acknowledgment by the "Lefts" is particularly clear evidence of their mistake. How can one say that "parliamentarianism is politically obsolete", when "millions" and "legions" of proletarians are not only still in favour of parliamentarianism in general, but are downright "counter-revolutionary"!? It is obvious that parliamentarianism in Germany is not yet politically obsolete. It is obvious that the "Lefts" in Germany have mistaken their desire, their politico-ideological attitude, for objective reality. That is a most dangerous mistake for revolutionaries to make ...

Parliamentarianism is of course "politically obsolete" to the Communists in Germany; but—and that is the whole point—we must not regard what is obsolete to us as something obsolete to a class, to the masses. Here again we find that the "Lefts" do not know how to reason, do not know how to act as the party of a class, as the party of the masses. You must not sink to the level of the masses, to the level of the backward strata of the class. That is incontestable. You must tell them the bitter truth. You are in duty bound to call their bourgeois-democratic and parliamentary prejudices what they are—prejudices. But at the same time you must soberly follow the actual state of the class-consciousness and preparedness of the entire class (not only of its communist vanguard), and of all the working people (not only of their advanced elements) ...

Whilst you lack the strength to do away with bourgeois parliaments and every other type of reactionary institution, you must work within them because it is there that you will still find workers who are duped by the priests and stultified by the conditions of rural life; otherwise you risk turning into nothing but windbags.

Anyway, why would quoting Lenin end a debate?

[Kassad]

Also, note that Lenin and Stalin's first dispute took place over parliamentary action. Lenin was very much in favor of it, whereas Stalin opposed it. I've seen this mentioned in just about everything I've ever read on Stalin and Lenin's theoretical contributions.

[Leo]

Right. A revolutionary socialist calling for the destruction of capitalism and an end to militaristic hegemony is such a politician. :rolleyes:

Uh... I read the article you posted and your candidate actually isn't calling for the destruction of capitalism or ending militaristic hegemony. What she is calling for is merely a more statist taxation policy. Of course she is running for a position in the capitalist state. I don't think a capitalist foundation increasing the amount of money it takes from other capitalist foundations somehow will somehow destroy capitalism. In fact it would be quite silly on your candidates part to call for the destruction of capitalism since as stated since she is running for a position in the capitalist state herself.

Now, since there is no chance whatsoever of her winning or even getting a significant number of votes, I see no reason to even slightly suspect the smallest ill intention on her part; I am sure she actually believes she is doing something positive, sees herself as a socialist and so forth. But lets not fool herself: she is not running on an actually socialist program that calls for the destruction of the capitalist state and that of course is because it is not possible to run for an office in the capitalist state with an actual socialist program that calls for the destruction of the capitalist state.


I think some of the 'oh so pure' liberal left on here need to wake up and remember the fact that traditionally the most successful anticapitalist parties in history have been Marxist-Leninist, and still attract a fair what of support. If my memory serves me, didn't the "Stalinist" Communist Party of the Russian Federation come second in the (pretty)recent Presidential election?

The Communist Party of the Russian Federation is not an anti-capitalist party, it is not only a very nationalist party but it also is a mainstream bourgeois party, which has the support of lots of big industrialists. Yes, it came second, and Putin's party came first. AKEL, the (ex)Stalinist current ruling party of Cyprus and PCdRM, the Stalinist ruling party of Moldova are not different in that sense. None of these parties are programmatically anti-capitalist either.

Stalinist parties have certainly been going downhill since events like Hungary 56 and May 68, and the collapse of the Eastern Block and the close alliance formed between the Chinese regime and the US basically did the trick. Stalinism still has influence, and still serves the bourgeoisie in spreading illusions among the workers, and even in beating up or butchering workers in some cases, but it is clearly not nearly as important as it used to be. Being an ideology based historically on the counter-revolution that claimed the lives of ten thousands of revolutionaries and workers who made the Russian revolution, Stalinism will never make a return to what it was before 1990, let alone 1968 or 1956 and keep being a minor force in the bourgeois political spectrum.


Basically, refusing to "lower" yourself to participation in elections is to willingly isolate yourself from the working class at a time when the working class still overwhelmingly believes in elections.

The working class does not overwhelmingly believe in elections. In most countries half of the population generally doesn't vote in the first place, and a significant part of those who vote mostly do so thinking they are voting for the least bad among lots of evils.

The working class is not made out of blind idiots. Despite the fact that I don't live in a neighborhood, city and even country which has a particularly class-conscious working class, in my experience working class people generally tend to know that the whole thing is a circus, that "they" are all the same, and their vote won't really make a difference.

I can even say this actually: the people who had the strictest belief in elections that I have encountered were the Stalinist or Trotskyist students I have discussed with, who were very strongly defending how important it was for their party to obtain the 0,1% or less of votes that it does obtain.

[Kassad]

Uh... I read the article you posted and your candidate actually isn't calling for the destruction of capitalism or ending militaristic hegemony. What she is calling for is merely a more statist taxation policy. Of course she is running for a position in the capitalist state. I don't think a capitalist foundation increasing the amount of money it takes from other capitalist foundations somehow will somehow destroy capitalism. In fact it would be quite silly on your candidates part to call for the destruction of capitalism since as stated since she is running for a position in the capitalist state herself.

She's running on the Socialism and Liberation ticket, an anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist organization that's struggling for socialism. The demands she is making are immediate demands; reforms that would drastically improve the living standard of the working class. Of course, as mentioned in a multitude of publications, articles and newspapers posted by the party, these reforms cannot be maintained without the destruction of capitalism. Try again.

Villar is quoted as saying "“My campaign will put the issues of unemployment, evictions, education and police brutality as the first order of business for the city to tackle—not the interests of the banks and billionaires,” she continued. “We live in the richest city in the country, but you would never know it by walking through the communities where most of us live.” (Source: www.VotePSL.org (http://www.VotePSL.org)) These are all progressive and revolutionary issues that need to be tackled by socialist groups and organizations. Tackling the contradictions of capitalism, such as unemployment and alienation, are essential for socialist construction and organizing a revolutionary party.

I'll quote her one more time. "I’m here because we need a new system! This city’s wealth—and the wealth of this whole country—needs to be put at the service of the people who created it. We may be today’s poor and working people, but we are the only ones that can get us out of this system of poverty, racism and war." (Source: http://www.pslweb.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=12163) Such a reformist platform, I know. Just breaks my heart.

[Martin Blank]

She's running on the Socialism and Liberation ticket, an anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist organization that's struggling for socialism.

... which no one would actually know unless they are fairly familiar with the left. And most people, including most of those who vote in NYC, are not that familiar. The fact is that, when it comes to elections, a candidate may only get one opportunity to address a voter, and that will most likely come through a leaflet or a speaking engagement. If you do not open the door to the full picture at that moment, all they will know of you is your short list of sub-reformist demands. (And, no, giving a link to your website or a free copy of your paper [unless the paper has an article/document stating your goals] doesn't count.)


The demands she is making are immediate demands; reforms that would drastically improve the living standard of the working class. Of course, as mentioned in a multitude of publications, articles and newspapers posted by the party, these reforms cannot be maintained without the destruction of capitalism. Try again.

Presenting a laundry list of minimal "immediate demands", and coupling that with a few vague statements about "the system" is not a revolutionary platform. There are Democrats and Greens here in Detroit that would run on the same platform that Villar is. And, again, in most elections you only get one shot to impress a voter.


Villar is quoted as saying "“My campaign will put the issues of unemployment, evictions, education and police brutality as the first order of business for the city to tackle—not the interests of the banks and billionaires,” she continued. “We live in the richest city in the country, but you would never know it by walking through the communities where most of us live.” (Source: www.VotePSL.org (http://www.VotePSL.org)) These are all progressive and revolutionary issues that need to be tackled by socialist groups and organizations. Tackling the contradictions of capitalism, such as unemployment and alienation, are essential for socialist construction and organizing a revolutionary party.

There is a difference between talking about these issues, which any nominally progressive candidate can do (hell, even Obama talks about these issues!), and presenting a platform that provides a revolutionary strategy and alternative.


I'll quote her one more time. "I’m here because we need a new system! This city’s wealth—and the wealth of this whole country—needs to be put at the service of the people who created it. We may be today’s poor and working people, but we are the only ones that can get us out of this system of poverty, racism and war." (Source: http://www.pslweb.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=12163) Such a reformist platform, I know. Just breaks my heart.

What system? We here may know what she's talking about, but, yet again, not everyone you're trying to reach will. Avoiding the use of the "C" word (capitalism) does not help clarify matters; it only muddies the water more.

Yes, it does break my heart, Kassad, to see someone with great potential being tied to such a sub-reformist platform.

[Kassad]

... which no one would actually know unless they are fairly familiar with the left. And most people, including most of those who vote in NYC, are not that familiar. The fact is that, when it comes to elections, a candidate may only get one opportunity to address a voter, and that will most likely come through a leaflet or a speaking engagement. If you do not open the door to the full picture at that moment, all they will know of you is your short list of sub-reformist demands. (And, no, giving a link to your website or a free copy of your paper [unless the paper has an article/document stating your goals] doesn't count.)

Very few Marxist parties are relevant to the current working class, at least in their level of class consciousness. Of course, you answered the question by yourself. We run candidates to raise the banner of socialism and our party in the United States, which is trying to further revolutionary struggle. Anyway, since somehow a party's platform or website is no representation of their ideology apparently, I have no means of convincing Miles that my party is a Marxist party. Strange world.


Presenting a laundry list of minimal "immediate demands", and coupling that with a few vague statements about "the system" is not a revolutionary platform. There are Democrats and Greens here in Detroit that would run on the same platform that Villar is. And, again, in most elections you only get one shot to impress a voter.

I seriously doubt that Villar, at our conferences that are not very long and are filled with issues and speakers, had hours and hours to talk about her ideology and her platform. She got the message across and anyone who does ten seconds of research on the Party for Socialism and Liberation realizes that they're a Marxist-Leninist party fighting for revolutionary change. Of course, if you want to be narrow-minded and nitpick for tiny details because a speaker didn't properly define why we need a new system, which should be self-explanatory, then you get what you're looking for.


There is a difference between talking about these issues, which any nominally progressive candidate can do (hell, even Obama talks about these issues!), and presenting a platform that provides a revolutionary strategy and alternative.

Our part's platform and strategy can be understood through a consistent analysis of the party's actions in the workplace and on the streets regarding the multitude of issues that face us as revolutionaries today. Our party's program can be fully read by ordering a copy of the party's Who We Are and What We Stand For. We stand for socialism and the support of class struggle in formulating a system where wealth is given to those who produce it; a common ownership of the means of production by the proletariat. Take time to read the website and party publications or you'll remain uninformed about the party.


What system? We here may know what she's talking about, but, yet again, not everyone you're trying to reach will. Avoiding the use of the "C" word (capitalism) does not help clarify matters; it only muddies the water more.

Yes, it does break my heart, Kassad, to see someone with great potential being tied to such a sub-reformist platform.

Because struggling to destroy capitalism and to promote socialism; advocating Marxist-Leninist theory; working towards a successful dictatorship of the proletariat and opposing and fighting against the contradictions that enslave us are now 'reformist.' Your statements are not only ignorant, but they're totally elitist; assuming that you can call a party reformist that is struggling for Marxism with literally no factual basis.

[Sam_b]

Yes, your right. I wish us liberal lefties could be as ideologically coherent as to do such things as the SWP and advocate a vote for New Labour. Alas, we're too 'liberal' to support neo-liberal parties. Or maybe like the PSL we could support the suppresion of a movement against authoritarian capitalist regimes such as the Chinese dictatorship.


Two quick points for ya, champ.

1. A supposed 'anarchist' who would 'probably' have voted No2EU today shouldn't be so gung-ho about a party who called for a Labour vote almost ten years ago.

2. I would suggest you read up on things before epousing bullshit. The PSL as far as I am aware is critical of the current Chinese Regime, but views the Chinese Revolution favourably. Both are, funnily enough, entirely different things.

Now, before you veer wildly off-topic again (or does every thread I post in have to turn into a sect argument about the SWP at your behest?), do you have anything to say that is constructive about Frances Villar and the PSL?

I'm pretty sick of you jumping in with one-liners about the SWP and trying to ruin conversation in almost every thread that an SWP member posts in, to be honest. Please don't start the same thing for our American comrades.

[Omi]

Its more to do how the party operates on the surface and what it actually does. Working class people are more concerned with losing their jobs and facing eviction from their homes than someone in a party who mentions Stalin favourably.



That sounds just so f*cking patronizing.:thumbdown:

[Jack]

Proudhonists, Makhnovist movement, Durruti Column....

"Proudhonists" call themselves Mutualists, and are irrelavent anyways.

The Makhnovischina was Anarchist-Communist, like Makhno, their ideology wasn't "Makhnovism".

The Durruti Collumn was made up of anarcho-syndicalists like Durruti, and Durruti was a primary player in it, but they didn't proclaim themselves Durrutists.

[Sam_b]

That sounds just so f*cking patronizing

It would sound patrionising if I wasn't working class myself. My work has cut down my hours so I will struggle even more to make ends meet next year along with my student debts. Do I really care about X party's regarding of Marxism? Not particularly. Do I care about X party actively campaigning against job cuts and that joins workers on a picket line? Yes. Am I worried about losing my job? You bet.

So I don't really see what your point is. Indeed, do you disagree? Do you think workers are more concerned with job losses and eviction than Stalin?

[BobKKKindle$]

the most successful anticapitalist parties in history have been Marxist-Leninist, and still attract a fair what of supportI think I might have to disagree with you there. You're right in saying that most of those who consider themselves communists have historically belonged to organizations that regard the USSR under Stalin as a progressive force on the international stage and as a legitimate example of how socialism should operate as a political and economic system (i.e. Stalinist parties) and there are also some recent cases of Stalinists doing well in bourgeois elections. However, it does not follow from these observations that Stalinists have historically been the most successful anti-capitalists, if by "anti-capitalist" we mean a political force that is oppossed to the capitalist mode of production in all its forms, and committed to the construction of socialism. When Stalinists have taken power, the result has always been the emergence of a state-capitalist regime in which the bureaucracy functions as the ruling class and owns the means of production through the state, with the state occasionally giving the working class a few crumbs so as to ensure its passive consent. This is because the "revolutions" that Stalinists cite as their successes have never been socialist revolutions - they have either been led by small bands of individuals who distance themselves from workers and seek to challenge the political power of the incumbent bourgeoisie through guerrilla attacks, as in Cuba, or have been movements which draw their strength from the peasantry, and are directed by intellectuals, as in the case of the so-called Chinese Revolution. It is the ABC of Marxism that the working class must be the agent of its own emancipation, and the only time in history this basic criterion has ever been met is the October Revolution of 1917, which, after its defeat, gave rise to a state-capitalist regime, and a set of political structures that Trotsky identified as Stalinism. In this sense, Stalinists are not good anti-capitalists at all, especially when we consider that have historically undermined revolutionary situations by entering into popular fronts with factions of the bourgeoisie and suppressing other sections of the radical left, as occurred in France in 1968, and during the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s. Stalinists are not progressive, and that's why they applaud the massacre of Chinese workers and peasants, not to mention all the other crimes committed by state-capitalist regimes.


Anyway, since somehow a party's platform or website is no representation of their ideology apparently,This is completely right, if by having a correct ideology you mean that party being a genuine force for emancipation. I don't think you can tell much about a party from its website or from the statements it issues because whether the PSL or any other organization is a progressive force depends entirely on how it applies its ideas, and whether it has an organic connection with the working class. It's all very well being the head of an anti-war movement and condemning imperialism, but what kind of base does the PSL have in the trade union movement, for example? Why does it spend so much time trying to get elected to the executive positions of the bourgeois state, running on a reformist program, whilst apparently not making any effort to organize strikes, and assume a position of leadership in workplaces? If I was thinking of which party to join as a socialist, then those are really the key things that I'd have in mind.

[ls]

It's all very well being the head of an anti-war movement and condemning imperialism, but what kind of base does the PSL have in the trade union movement, for example?

What kind of base does the SWP have either? You have no ground to criticise PSL in such a way.


Why does it spend so much time trying to get elected to the executive positions of the bourgeois state

The SWP have done this too though, what a double standard you are running.


running on a reformist program, whilst apparently not making any effort to organize strikes, and assume a position of leadership in workplaces?

So what efforts have the SWP made? The SWP's presence at visteon was a shambles, all you did was put up flyposters, stalls and try to talk to maybe 2 workers. You got kicked out the factory because you weren't liked for your approach at leadership as you put it.


If I was thinking of which party to join as a socialist, then those are really the key things that I'd have in mind.

It would seem you've found your perfect party already.

[BobKKKindle$]

What kind of base does the SWP have either? You have no ground to criticise PSL in such a way.The SWP has a base in the trade union movement. From what I gather, we have lots of members in the NUT and UCU, and also some executives elsewhere, such as the vice president of the CWU. Our presence probably isn't big enough, but I think that a party should make at least some effort to organize in workplaces, because the revolution won't be won by anti-war protests and having lots of committed student activists.


The SWP have done this too though, what a double standard you are running.I think running for London mayor - which is the only executive position that we've run for, as far as I know - was a bit of a mistake to be honest, but I don't see any problem with running for, say, local council elections, either as a party, or as part of an electoral front, because those aren't part of the executive, and so if one of our members ended up getting elected to one of those positions, they wouldn't be responsible for implementing policies that harm the working class.


So what efforts have the SWP made? The SWP's presence at visteon was a shamblesI gather that quite a few of those workers actually became members of our organization, which is a good sign.

Anyway, as fun as it is for you to throw stuff about the SWP around, this thread is actually about the PSL, so if you want to continue your tirade, please do so in another thread - create one if you wish.

[Die Neue Zeit]

The working class does not overwhelmingly believe in elections. In most countries half of the population generally doesn't vote in the first place, and a significant part of those who vote mostly do so thinking they are voting for the least bad among lots of evils.

The working class is not made out of blind idiots. Despite the fact that I don't live in a neighborhood, city and even country which has a particularly class-conscious working class, in my experience working class people generally tend to know that the whole thing is a circus, that "they" are all the same, and their vote won't really make a difference.

I can even say this actually: the people who had the strictest belief in elections that I have encountered were the Stalinist or Trotskyist students I have discussed with, who were very strongly defending how important it was for their party to obtain the 0,1% or less of votes that it does obtain.

In polemicizing against both sides in this debate, I must say that the failure of the ultra-left here is their belief in spontaneism. The advocacy of staying home caters to such spontaneism. On the other hand, there needs to be an organized spoilage movement, and that can only arise between a division between organizers and organized, between leaders and followers.

[Martin Blank]

Very few Marxist parties are relevant to the current working class, at least in their level of class consciousness. Of course, you answered the question by yourself. We run candidates to raise the banner of socialism and our party in the United States, which is trying to further revolutionary struggle. Anyway, since somehow a party's platform or website is no representation of their ideology apparently, I have no means of convincing Miles that my party is a Marxist party. Strange world.

For starters, I didn't ask any questions. I made comments. If I was to ask a question, however, it would be this: If the extent of all the public activity of your organization is based around reformist and sub-reformist demands, and appeals to the capitalist class, how can anyone take your calls for "revolution" and "socialism" seriously?


I seriously doubt that Villar, at our conferences that are not very long and are filled with issues and speakers, had hours and hours to talk about her ideology and her platform. She got the message across and anyone who does ten seconds of research on the Party for Socialism and Liberation realizes that they're a Marxist-Leninist party fighting for revolutionary change. Of course, if you want to be narrow-minded and nitpick for tiny details because a speaker didn't properly define why we need a new system, which should be self-explanatory, then you get what you're looking for.

If what you say and what you do are not consistent, then most people are going to judge you by what you do. You can call yourselves a "Marxist-Leninist party" until you're blue (or red) in the face, but that doesn't necessarily make it true. Pol Pot called his organization a "Marxist-Leninist party", but does that make it true?

A communist party is one that not only has communist principles, but also applies those principles consistently and continuously in its work. The demands a communist party raises, whether immediate or historic, are concrete and based in the lessons encapsulated in the party's principles. They are not simply what we think people are ready to hear. They are not lowest-common-denominator slogans.


Our party's platform and strategy can be understood through a consistent analysis of the party's actions in the workplace and on the streets regarding the multitude of issues that face us as revolutionaries today. Our party's program can be fully read by ordering a copy of the party's Who We Are and What We Stand For. We stand for socialism and the support of class struggle in formulating a system where wealth is given to those who produce it; a common ownership of the means of production by the proletariat. Take time to read the website and party publications or you'll remain uninformed about the party.

I'm more than informed about the PSL, Kassad. The difference between you and me is that I can see past the rhetoric. I've been a communist far too long to simply take someone's word for it. I'm a materialist; I look at what you are doing in the real world. There's a lot of sound and fury, but that's it. Nothing you've done with ANSWER has advanced the class struggle one whit. You didn't stop the war or the occupations. You haven't ended racism. You've given people a multitude of opportunities to vent steam through protests, but without a clear revolutionary goal, all you've done is waste your own shoe leather. Can you cite one victory, small or large, that ANSWER has had? (Seriously, I can't think of one.) You can put a million people in the streets, but it's not a victory unless you achieved something other than keeping people busy.


Because struggling to destroy capitalism and to promote socialism; advocating Marxist-Leninist theory; working towards a successful dictatorship of the proletariat and opposing and fighting against the contradictions that enslave us are now 'reformist.'

It is if all your "struggling" is based on demands to roll back the clock of history to a time when CUNY had free tuition, the wealthy were taxed at a higher rate and the "peace dividend" was being poured into schools, roads and industry (in case you're wondering, that was the 1960s).

It is if your advocacy of "Marxist-Leninist theory" has virtually no relation to your public activity, your concrete goals and your explicit tasks.

It is if you abdicate the role of social change in society to ficticious well-meaning capitalist politicians who will heed your demands for "Jobs and Schools, Not War" or to "Stop the War" or to "End the Occupations Now".

It is if the very contradictions that enslave us, which you say you want to fight against, are continuously appealed to with the apparent belief they will resolve themselves ... in spite of the fact that they have never done this, and never will.


Your statements are not only ignorant, but they're totally elitist; assuming that you can call a party reformist that is struggling for Marxism with literally no factual basis.

The factual basis is the work your organization does. You say you're "struggling for Marxism", but what you do is struggle for a capitalism that works for you. Your program isn't worth the paper it's printed on unless you plan to actually apply it to your work consistently.

You can call this viewpoint ignorant and elitist. But what's ignorant and elitist is the belief that sub-reformist demands are all that workers want to hear about or can accept, either at an antiwar action or in an electoral campaign -- that "oppression oppresses" and workers are either too stupid or too exhausted to worry their pretty little heads with high theory. Such Bumper Sticker Bolshevism has never worked, and never will.

[BobKKKindle$]

Stop it, all of you. Either get back on track, discuss this via a new thread, or don't post at all.

[PRC-UTE]

For starters, I didn't ask any questions. I made comments. If I was to ask a question, however, it would be this: If the extent of all the public activity of your organization is based around reformist and sub-reformist demands, and appeals to the capitalist class, how can anyone take your calls for "revolution" and "socialism" seriously?



If what you say and what you do are not consistent, then most people are going to judge you by what you do. You can call yourselves a "Marxist-Leninist party" until you're blue (or red) in the face, but that doesn't necessarily make it true. Pol Pot called his organization a "Marxist-Leninist party", but does that make it true?

A communist party is one that not only has communist principles, but also applies those principles consistently and continuously in its work. The demands a communist party raises, whether immediate or historic, are concrete and based in the lessons encapsulated in the party's principles. They are not simply what we think people are ready to hear. They are not lowest-common-denominator slogans.



I'm more than informed about the PSL, Kassad. The difference between you and me is that I can see past the rhetoric. I've been a communist far too long to simply take someone's word for it. I'm a materialist; I look at what you are doing in the real world. There's a lot of sound and fury, but that's it. Nothing you've done with ANSWER has advanced the class struggle one whit. You didn't stop the war or the occupations. You haven't ended racism. You've given people a multitude of opportunities to vent steam through protests, but without a clear revolutionary goal, all you've done is waste your own shoe leather. Can you cite one victory, small or large, that ANSWER has had? (Seriously, I can't think of one.) You can put a million people in the streets, but it's not a victory unless you achieved something other than keeping people busy.



It is if all your "struggling" is based on demands to roll back the clock of history to a time when CUNY had free tuition, the wealthy were taxed at a higher rate and the "peace dividend" was being poured into schools, roads and industry (in case you're wondering, that was the 1960s).

It is if your advocacy of "Marxist-Leninist theory" has virtually no relation to your public activity, your concrete goals and your explicit tasks.

It is if you abdicate the role of social change in society to ficticious well-meaning capitalist politicians who will heed your demands for "Jobs and Schools, Not War" or to "Stop the War" or to "End the Occupations Now".

It is if the very contradictions that enslave us, which you say you want to fight against, are continuously appealed to with the apparent belief they will resolve themselves ... in spite of the fact that they have never done this, and never will.



The factual basis is the work your organization does. You say you're "struggling for Marxism", but what you do is struggle for a capitalism that works for you. Your program isn't worth the paper it's printed on unless you plan to actually apply it to your work consistently.

You can call this viewpoint ignorant and elitist. But what's ignorant and elitist is the belief that sub-reformist demands are all that workers want to hear about or can accept, either at an antiwar action or in an electoral campaign -- that "oppression oppresses" and workers are either too stupid or too exhausted to worry their pretty little heads with high theory. Such Bumper Sticker Bolshevism has never worked, and never will.

Miles, you make a lot of valid criticisms. However you could easily be open to the same ones yourself. The American left is famously weak.

[Glenn Beck]

Hey guys, I have an idea! Instead of discussing the party named in the title of this thread let's have a sectarian dispute about another party in some small island nation an ocean away!

[Martin Blank]

Miles, you make a lot of valid criticisms. However you could easily be open to the same ones yourself. The American left is famously weak.

Every organization is open to criticism, including my own. I think that the difference is that we have the nasty little habit of actually listening to such comments (provided they are constructive and valid) and seeing if there are ways to apply criticisms we accept.

Yes, I know quite well that the movement of self-described socialist and communist organizations in this country is weak. But I also know that we cannot make it any stronger by resorting to short-cuts and get-rich-quick schemes at the expense of our principles. We have seen that future and it doesn't work.

[Kassad]

This is completely right, if by having a correct ideology you mean that party being a genuine force for emancipation. I don't think you can tell much about a party from its website or from the statements it issues because whether the PSL or any other organization is a progressive force depends entirely on how it applies its ideas, and whether it has an organic connection with the working class. It's all very well being the head of an anti-war movement and condemning imperialism, but what kind of base does the PSL have in the trade union movement, for example? Why does it spend so much time trying to get elected to the executive positions of the bourgeois state, running on a reformist program, whilst apparently not making any effort to organize strikes, and assume a position of leadership in workplaces? If I was thinking of which party to join as a socialist, then those are really the key things that I'd have in mind.

Well, if you check out the video section here, there's a lot of examples of the Party for Socialism and Liberation's strike and protest presence. There's a video of the Bank of America protests, which our party expressed solidarity with the Republic Window & Doors workers by protesting a bank that was assaulting union rights. It is also mandatory for all party members to join or attempt to create a union in our workplace. Also, we have ties with Industrial Workers of the World, who are often present at our marches and have worked with ANSWER and party members, such as at the Bank of America protests.

The party has incredible union presence and all party materials are union-made. We run candidates in elections to raise awareness about socialism and Marxism. The distribution of fliers, our paper, our magazine and our consistent conferences, we bring workers from all communities and races to learn about revolution and socialism. Our platforms are not reformist at all, as the notion that her not mentioning capitalism at her announcement is absurd. It took place at the Harlem 'Billionares -Your Time is up!' conference in late May. That was a conference run by the Party for Socialism and Liberation, therefore I seriously doubt that such explicit definitions were needed. Also note Carlos Alvarez's campaign for mayor of Los Angeles, where he starts his speeches describing how he is a socialist and how that differs from the other candidates running for office. This isn't reformism. This is revolutionary socialism advocated by a Marxist-Leninist party with roots in the working class of all backgrounds. Our message is quickly gaining strength and support and we need proper leadership to continue the class struggle.

[JimmyJazz]

Also, we have ties with Industrial Workers of the World, who are often present at our marches and have worked with ANSWER and party members, such as at the Bank of America protests.

Really? In L.A. the PSL has let the IWW have a discount on the fee they charge all groups wanting to set up a booth at an ANSWER protest. That's the only "ties" they have out here.

However, I was going to bring it up earlier that at least you do let us set up a booth and aren't like "gtfo anarchists".

What's up with charging a fee to set up a booth on public space at your protests btw?


The party has incredible union presence

??


Also note Carlos Alvarez's campaign for mayor of Los Angeles, where he starts his speeches describing how he is a socialist and how that differs from the other candidates running for office.

It is definitely ridiculous to the accuse the PSL of not being open about the fact that it advocates socialism. Anyone can go to their weekly public meetings and hear them defend North Korea in front of a giant "Socialism Now" banner, ffs. If anything it's a little over the top.

[Kassad]

Really? In L.A. the PSL has let the IWW have a discount on the fee they charge all groups wanting to set up a booth at an ANSWER protest. That's the only "ties" they have out here.

However, I was going to bring it up earlier that at least you do let us set up a booth and aren't like "gtfo anarchists".

What's up with charging a fee to set up a booth on public space at your protests btw?

If you find a way to make all the signs, fliers and posters for our rallies that everyone uses, as well as banners and the permit to get permission to protest, let us know. Sorry, but these things aren't free and the things, like our recent call on the Freedom of Information Act regarding the mysterious death of someone who was tortured and forced into giving appeasing testimony, cost a lot of money. Also, running political campaigns, organizing conferences and keeping an active presence is expensive.

If you're looking to see us working with Industrial Workers of the World, you can see ANSWER protestors, notably Gloria La Riva, getting arrested with an IWW leader here: http://peppsl.convio.net/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=10473&news_iv_ctrl=1261

As I said, party members must work to formulate and be active in unions. We protested Bank of America and struggle with the teacher unions in California, as well, which you can see in some of Carlos Alvarez's speeches and articles.

[JimmyJazz]

If you're looking to see us working with Industrial Workers of the World, you can see ANSWER protestors, notably Gloria La Riva, getting arrested with an IWW leader here: http://peppsl.convio.net/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=10473&news_iv_ctrl=1261

Neat.

[Lolshevik]

With regards to the PSL candidates advocating 'reformist' demands:

The way I see it, the PSL slogans - such as a job is a right, no person being 'illegal', etc, while they may sound reformist at first glance in that their implementation would not immediately destroy capitalism, are really demands that could never be met under capitalism. How could the capitalist class give up imperialist war, give up the constant threat of unemployment, without also giving up its own grip on society?

So they are not really reformist at all. I also think it's cool that we have a decent relationship with the IWW, notwithstanding the issues I have with anarchism.

[Orange Juche]

This just announced: I, Jack, will be running for Mayor of New York as well

My Platform:

*Thing that will never be implemented because I will lose A

*Thing that will never be implemented because I will lose B

*Thing that will never be implemented because I will lose C

Jack is also a revolutionary, who's running for an office just to show how uber-revolutionary he is! The real revolution comes at the ballot box, comrades!

For all the rhetoric I hear about how using the ballot box has no values whatsoever, I've yet to hear a good argument for purposely choosing not to run. What negatives result from this campaign? What in this campaign works contrarily to the party's end goals?

[RHIZOMES]

This just announced: I, Jack, will be running for Mayor of New York as well

My Platform:

*Thing that will never be implemented because I will lose A

*Thing that will never be implemented because I will lose B

*Thing that will never be implemented because I will lose C

Jack is also a revolutionary, who's running for an office just to show how uber-revolutionary he is! The real revolution comes at the ballot box, comrades!

Ultra-leftist alert


But isn't working with people who use different tactics a main part of being anti-sectarian?

Yes, but it'd be infeasible with people wih different goals and diferrent attitudes to be in one party. The Workers Party of NZ works with anarchists on specific issues, that doesn't mean we should be in one group. Having lots of leftist groups is not as detrimental as the bourgeoisie make it out to be, it just seperates the shit activists who don't get anywhere from the good ones. I mean, look how many factions there were in the Russian Revolution, the reason the revolution succeeded was because there was a party which had the most correct line and tactics, not because anyone vaguely left-leaning joined up into one mass party.


I do love to see a fair, accurate and intelligent criticism of anarchism. Well done to you.

Obviously I don't agree with the idea of running in bourgeoisie elections. Sure, it gets your message out but from the opputunistic nature of Leninists groups in the present day and throughout history I highly doubt thats their sole aim when getting involved with these things. That and Leninism is an anti-worker ideology.

Aside from that it'd be interesting to see how this lady does in the election.

Yep raising class consciousness how opputunistic (sic)!!!


That sounds just so f*cking patronizing.:thumbdown:

I would say your position is patronizing but eh.

[Pawn Power]

This is great news. I wish Frances Villar the best of luck in the campaign.

She'll need much more than luck, namely, millions of millions of campaign dollars.

[Lolshevik]

She'll need much more than luck, namely, millions of millions of campaign dollars.

It's a shame the capitalists won't fund our campaigns the way they do the Republicrats. I wonder why... :cool:

Anyhow, I wouldn't count out the volunteer efforts and donations of working class people just yet. We did very well last year in the presidential race, and earlier this year with Carlos Alvarez.

[Martin Blank]

The way I see it, the PSL slogans - such as a job is a right, no person being 'illegal', etc, while they may sound reformist at first glance in that their implementation would not immediately destroy capitalism, are really demands that could never be met under capitalism. How could the capitalist class give up imperialist war, give up the constant threat of unemployment, without also giving up its own grip on society?

"... could never be met under capitalism"? I guess that depends on your definition of capitalism. Let's take the slogan of "a job is a right".

This slogan has been a favorite of the left for a long time. Of course, the funny part of it is that it already is a (bourgeois) right. In 1978, Congress passed and then-President Jimmy Carter signed into law the Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment Act. The title of that law states that it is


An Act to translate into practical reality the right of all Americans who are able, willing, and seeking to work to full opportunity for useful paid employment at fair rates of compensation; to assert the responsibility of the Federal Government to use all practicable programs and policies to promote full employment, production, and real income, balanced growth, adequate productivity growth, proper attention to national priorities, and reasonable price stability; to require the President each year to set further explicit short-term and medium-term economic goals; to achieve a better integration of general and structural economic policies; and to improve the coordination of economic policy-making within the Federal Government.

Of course, that hasn't really stopped the left from demanding that a job be made a right by the capitalists. One can suppose that the reason why the capitalists have not been forthcoming on answering this demand is that they're too busy laughing behind closed doors at the ignorance of the left.

Some of the more law-savvy leftists have altered their slogans from making a job a right to demanding enforcement of Humphrey-Hawkins (or simply the "Full Employment Acts"). The "official" Communist Party has done this for 30 years; Workers World has recently been speaking more in these terms around their "People's Summit" coming up in Detroit in a couple weeks.

But here's the point: The capitalists can make adopt such a slogan as their own and legislate it to the point of uselessness. "A job is a right"? Sure, we can pass a law saying that (or two, as the case may be -- the Full Employment Act of 1946 uses similar language, though not as explicit). It's true that they may never be able to implement them to an extent that satisfies us, but they can co-opt and make the slogans their own if they see it as necessary. Indeed, they already have with this one ... 30 years ago!

On "No person is 'illegal'": Now, we raise a similar slogan when it comes to immigration ("No worker is 'illegal'"), but that's not as much a demand as it is a declaration. But is it possible for the capitalists to implement such a policy of free and unrestricted immigration?

From 1789 to 1875, there were no restrictions on immigration to the United States. The only immigration law that existed was a requirement that immigrants on board ships be listed in a manifest. The first restrictions were things like residency permits. In 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Law was passed, but immigration from Europe remained unrestricted. The first general restrictions on immigration were adopted in 1921, later buttressed by the obscenely racist National Origins Act of 1924.

Again, the point here is that it such a demand can be met by the capitalists ... under the right conditions.

And generally speaking, that is question communists ask when examining demands to determine whether they are reformist or revolutionary: Can they be met under certain conditions, or when the capitalists feel it is necessary to co-opt them? If you can answer yes, then you ask the follow-up question: Does the context of the demand change when raised in conjunction with other demands?

That is the rub.

The PSL raises eight concrete demands in their electoral platform (four of them in the fifth bullet point): 1. Tax the rich; 2. De-prioritize debt payments; 3. A job is a right; 4. Moratorium on foreclosures and evictions; 5a. Safe and modern classrooms; 5b. Raise teacher salaries; 5c. More parental say in classrooms; 5d. Free tuition at CUNY. Police brutality is only mentioned in passing in the commentary; capitalism is not mentioned at all, and neither is "socialism" -- except in the name of the organization.

This platform (and similar variants) is well-known and familiar to me. I have seen it in countless pieces of electoral literature from Workers World in the past. If we were to forget or ignore the name of the organization, you would not be able to distinguish this platform from a "progressive Democrat" or a Green candidate. Indeed, I can see why Workers World has moved toward the Green Party in recent years: they share a common electoral platform, and the GPUS will allow them to their "Sunday Socialist" pecadillos.

But, yes, let's face facts: The PSL also shares a common electoral platform with the Greens. Don't believe me? Try this on for size:


What the Frances Villar for Mayor (Green) 2009 Campaign Stands For

* The billionaires are going to pay for this crisis! They created the crisis — now they should be the ones to pay for it. Tax Wall Street and the big landlords.

* People before banks! The city currently pays $5 billion every year to the banks in debt payments — before it ever makes it to the city budget. We are calling for the city to put the banks at the back of the line.

* Every New Yorker has a right to a job!

* New York City should be an eviction-free zone. No foreclosures or evictions in the city.

* Education is a right. Make sure every child in the city has a safe and modern classroom. Raise the salary for every public school teacher in the city, and make parents have a real say in their children’s curriculum. CUNY should be free.

Student and mother will challenge billionaire Bloomberg for mayor

Frances Villar, a 26-year-old mother of two and City University of New York student, will challenge New York City’s richest man in the 2009 New York City mayoral race. Villar will run on the Green Party ticket.

"In the middle of the worst economic crisis our country has seen in decades, New York City deserves a candidate that speaks in the name of poor and working people, not for the billionaires,” Villar announced.

“My campaign will put the issues of unemployment, evictions, education and police brutality as the first order of business for the city to tackle — not the interests of the banks and billionaires,” she continued. “We live in the richest city in the country, but you would never know it by walking through the communities where most of us live.”

Villar is a student leader who has worked tirelessly against the city’s and state’s efforts to make CUNY students pay for the budget crisis. She is the president of her building’s tenants association. She has organized against the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and against the occupation of Palestine.

The Green Party was formed in 1994. The Greens fielded presidential candidates Cynthia McKinney and Rosa Clemente in the 2008 elections, and were on the ballot in 20 states, including New York.

Villar formally announced her campaign at a Saturday, May 23 GPNY Public Conference under the banner, “Billionaires, your time is up — and we don’t just mean Bloomberg."

There's no stretch here. I think anyone can see that.

This was what I was getting at in my first post. You cannot posture as a revolutionary (or even radical) alternative in an election if there is nothing revolutionary (or even radical) in your electoral platform.

[Kassad]

Miles, that is utter bullshit. I'm sure the Green Party has dozens of articles defending revolutionary Cuba and the gains of the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela. Oh wait. I'll bet they defend the socialist gains of the Soviet Union and China. No? Well, I'm sure they advocate the destruction of capitalism. They don't? Shit, well, are they for democratic workers control of the state? Do they uphold Marxism and Leninism in their fullest form? Are their members obligated to join unions to demand workers rights in the workplace? Are they rallying around the banner of socialism? None of that? Well, damn.

Your argument falls apart in a matter of seconds. The Green Party of the United States is a capitalist party and nowhere in their platform do they advocate revolution or the destruction of capitalism, in favor of workers control. The Green Party also does not function under the tenents of democratic centralism, which is essential for Marxist-Leninist parties. Cynthia McKinney is an extraordinary woman and I respect what she fights for, but when it comes to McKinney, Cindy Sheehan and the Green Party, despite how many of them work with revolutionary groups like the ANSWER Coalition, that doesn't make them revolutionary in itself. I mean, you could ignore my whole post and narrow it down to this: is the Green Party calling for revolution? No, they aren't, and that's a fundamental thing you seem willing to ignore for reasons that are beyond me.

I'll keep going, though. On the VotePSL website, you can click for information on 'My (meaning, Frances Villar's) party." http://www.pslweb.org/site/PageServer?pagename=votepsl_aboutus



Capitalism—the system in which all wealth and power is held by a tiny group of billionaires and their state—is the source of the main problems confronting humanity today: imperialist war, poverty, exploitation, layoffs, unemployment, racism, sexism, lesbian/gay/bi/trans oppression, environmental destruction, mass imprisonment, unionbusting, and more.

We are fighting for socialism, a system where the wealth of society belongs to those who produce it, the working class, and is used in a planned and sustainable way for the benefit of all. In place of greed, domination and exploitation, we stand for solidarity, friendship and cooperation between all peoples.

The reformism! It burns! A little over to the right, you can click the 'Why Socialism?' link. http://www.pslweb.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=7971

I mean, what else do you need to see here? Does she need to get a hammer and sickle tattooed on her back for you to think she and the party are revolutionary? What you're doing right now is being totally counterproductive by acting like having to click a link to see the word 'capitalism' mentioned, though it's obviously referenced, is such a burden; assuming that that is now the universal decider of reformist against revolutionary parties. Sorry, but you're without a paddle right now.

[Martin Blank]

You're still not getting it. I had you pegged as an intelligent and reasonable person, but you continue to conflate and confuse. At first, I thought it was simply misunderstanding, but now I'm beginning to think that this is intentional obfuscation designed to divert attention away from the criticism. In any event, I'll continue making my argument. If you want to continue avoiding and confusing the issues, that's your prerogative.


Miles, that is utter bullshit. I'm sure the Green Party has dozens of articles defending revolutionary Cuba and the gains of the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela. Oh wait. I'll bet they defend the socialist gains of the Soviet Union and China. No? Well, I'm sure they advocate the destruction of capitalism. They don't? Shit, well, are they for democratic workers control of the state? Do they uphold Marxism and Leninism in their fullest form? Are their members obligated to join unions to demand workers rights in the workplace? Are they rallying around the banner of socialism? None of that? Well, damn.

Are any of these mentioned in your electoral platform? No? Well, damn. Considering that's what we're talking about here, I would think that would remain the focus. Your argument basically boils down to this: Yes, our electoral platform contains all reformist demands, but because we talk about "socialism" and Cuba and Venezuela and Marxism-Leninism on our website and in our paper, we're still revolutionary. This is certainly a case of the PSL being "revolutionary in words, reformist in deeds" -- which, incidentally, was Lenin's shorthand definition of centrism.


Your argument falls apart in a matter of seconds. The Green Party of the United States is a capitalist party and nowhere in their platform do they advocate revolution or the destruction of capitalism, in favor of workers control. The Green Party also does not function under the tenents of democratic centralism, which is essential for Marxist-Leninist parties. Cynthia McKinney is an extraordinary woman and I respect what she fights for, but when it comes to McKinney, Cindy Sheehan and the Green Party, despite how many of them work with revolutionary groups like the ANSWER Coalition, that doesn't make them revolutionary in itself. I mean, you could ignore my whole post and narrow it down to this: is the Green Party calling for revolution? No, they aren't, and that's a fundamental thing you seem willing to ignore for reasons that are beyond me.

Note that I never called the PSL a "reformist" organization; I confined the use of that term to the electoral platform -- which is what we're supposed to be talking about.

But you seem to be drawing a direct line between the organization and its platform. Kudos to you for knowing the importance of such a link. But by doing so, you expose a fundamental contradiction within the PSL itself: the contradiction between your organization's theory and its practice. On the one hand, yes, you do talk about all the stock-and-trade issues that self-described socialist and communist organizations discuss, and you do make a lot of arguments that most would consider to be "revolutionary". The problem is that you fail to translate those nice words into practice. As I said before, you can talk about these things until you're blue in the face, but if there is no transition of these ideas from words on a page to slogans and organizing, they're meaningless. Eventually, this contradiction will have to resolve itself: either the PSL will have to adjust its practical work to be more in line with its theory, or it will have to adjust the theory (by way of strategy and methodology) to be more in line with its practice.

I cannot fault the PSL for having this contradiction. This is something they inherited from Workers World. In the end, the difference between the PSL and WWP on this issue is that the latter reached the point where it began to resolve the contradiction, with practice winning out over theory. The PSL has yet to resolve this contradiction. But it cannot avoid it forever.


I'll keep going, though. On the VotePSL website, you can click for information on 'My (meaning, Frances Villar's) party." http://www.pslweb.org/site/PageServer?pagename=votepsl_aboutus


Capitalism—the system in which all wealth and power is held by a tiny group of billionaires and their state—is the source of the main problems confronting humanity today: imperialist war, poverty, exploitation, layoffs, unemployment, racism, sexism, lesbian/gay/bi/trans oppression, environmental destruction, mass imprisonment, unionbusting, and more.

We are fighting for socialism, a system where the wealth of society belongs to those who produce it, the working class, and is used in a planned and sustainable way for the benefit of all. In place of greed, domination and exploitation, we stand for solidarity, friendship and cooperation between all peoples.

The reformism! It burns! A little over to the right, you can click the 'Why Socialism?' link. http://www.pslweb.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=7971

Why are you afraid to include things like this in your electoral platform? Why is it reserved only for your website or the inside pages of Liberation?


I mean, what else do you need to see here? Does she need to get a hammer and sickle tattooed on her back for you to think she and the party are revolutionary?

If she got it tattooed on her back, I wouldn't be able to see it through the hoodie. :D

Seriously, though, the issue here is, and has been, the electoral platform. Why don't you talk explicitly about capitalism in your platform? Why do you limit yourself to only one social and seven economic demands? Why is police brutality, which has been a major issue in New York City, only mentioned in the plaform in passing? Why don't you talk about the need for workers' control of production, defeat of the capitalist state or even "socialism"?

If you're using an electoral campaign to advance an ostensibly revolutionary Marxist message, you have to actually raise the practical elements of revolutionary Marxism ... not simply in your paper, not just on your website, but in your practical activity -- i.e., in your electoral platform. You can't just say, "Hi! We're revolutionary Marxists, but in this campaign we're only fighting to roll the clock back to 1960."

So, what else do I need to see? I need to see some consistency between your words and your actions -- between your theory and your practice.


What you're doing right now is being totally counterproductive by acting like having to click a link to see the word 'capitalism' mentioned, though it's obviously referenced, is such a burden; assuming that that is now the universal decider of reformist against revolutionary parties. Sorry, but you're without a paddle right now.

You really shouldn't make assumptions like this. It only makes you look foolish. I have explained several times what the issue is here: your party's electoral platform is sub-reformist. You party may talk about Marxism and "socialism", but it's meaningless unless you move from talk to action. (We'll leave aside the fact that large sections of the working class don't have Internet access yet, and so while they can read your flier, they cannot peruse your website for worthwhile links.)

Don't get me wrong, Kassad. I'm not questioning your sincerity and belief that what you're doing is revolutionary. I know you genuinely believe this is the way to go. What I am questioning, and criticizing, is your methodology. I think that you're not going to get what you want by continuing to do things the way you are. That's our real difference.

It's disturbing to me, though, that you would label a disagreement such as this as "counterproductive", when you have been the one who has been confusing the issue from the beginning. If you think I'm being rough on you, I can just imagine how poorly you'd handle a barrage of criticism coming at you in a sharper period of class struggle, from workers who are neither gracious nor forthright nor magnanamous. And, yes, given where you're at right now, I worry about what kind of society you'd allow to exist. If this kind of discussion is deemed "counterproductive", how far of a leap is it to declaring a debate such as this to be "counterrevolutionary"?

As I said before, you can call me all the names you want. I've been called worse by better people. You can think my arguments are bullshit, but it is not your judgement or approval I seek. And you can say that I am without a paddle, but one does not need a paddle when they already have a strong motor.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I hereby suggest these demands and others be raised in the PSL's electoral platform:

1) The ecological reduction of the normal workweek – including time for workplace democracy, workers’ self-management, etc. through workplace committees and assemblies – to a participatory-democratic maximum of 32 hours or less without loss of pay or benefits, the minimum provision of double-time pay or salary/contract equivalent for all hours worked over the normal workweek and over 8 hours a day, the prohibition of compulsory overtime, and the provision of one hour off with pay for every two hours of overtime;
2) Full, lawsuit-enforced freedom of class-strugglist assembly and association for ordinary people, even within the military, free especially from anti-employment reprisals, police interference such as from agents provocateurs, and formal political disenfranchisement;
3) The expansion of the right to bear arms and to general self-defense towards enabling the formation of people’s militias based on free training, especially in connection with class-strugglist association, and also free from police interference such as from agents provocateurs;
4) The expansion of local autonomy on questions of local development through participatory budgeting and oversight by local assemblies, as well as through unconditional economic assistance (both technical and financial) for localities seeking to establish local currency alternatives to government money;
5) The combating of two-party facades and degenerative yet professional personality politics in the various legislatures and executives through the institution, on the basis of compensation being at or slightly lower than the median equivalent for professional and other skilled workers, of the closed-list, proportionally representative form that allows mere parties, including smaller ones, to arbitrarily appoint to and remove from the halls of power the party-affiliated legislators, cabinet officials, and chief executives;
6) The combating of the anti-meritocratic personal inheritances of both poverty by children and ruling-class wealth, with the latter entailing the abolition of all remaining nobilities and the application of all funds derived from public, anti-inheritance appropriations of not some but all the relevant productive or other non-possessive properties (that would otherwise be immediately inherited through legal will or through gifting and other loopholes) towards exclusively public purposes;
7) Socio-income democracy through direct proposals and rejections, at the national level and above, regarding all formal and effective tax rates on all types of income – such as ordinary employment income, self-employment and managerial income, individual property income such as interest, both individual and corporate business income, both individual and corporate dividend income, and both individual and corporate capital gains – annual plebiscites with the right to create or raise upper tax rates on a steeply graduated basis, including changes to alternative minimum tax rates, transfer pricing tax rates, and gross-ups or multipliers for income outside of ordinary employment;
8) The application of not some but all economic rent of land towards exclusively public purposes – such as the abolition of all indirect and other class-regressive taxation – by first means of land value “taxation”;
9) Direct guarantees of a real livelihood to all workers, including unemployment and work incapacitation provisions – all based on a participatory-democratic normal workweek, all beyond bare subsistence minimums, and all before any indirect considerations like public health insurance – and including the universalization of annual, non-deflationary adjustments for all non-executive remunerations, pensions, and insurance benefits to at least match rising costs of living (not notorious government underestimations due to faulty measures like chain weighting, or even underhanded selections of the lower of core inflation and general inflation);
10) The institution of income-based or preferrably class-based affirmative action, especially in the sphere of education;
11) The mandatory private- and public-sector recognition of professional education, other higher education, and related work experience “from abroad,” along with the transnational standardization of such education and the institution of other measures to counter the underemployment of educated immigrants;
12) The abolition of all intellectual property laws and of all restrictions on the non-commodity economy of peer-to-peer sharing, open-source programming, and the like;
13) The genuine end of “free markets” – including in unemployment resulting from workplace closures, mass sackings, and mass layoffs – by first means of non-selective encouragement of, and unconditional economic assistance (both technical and financial) for, pre-cooperative worker buyouts of existing enterprises and enterprise operations.
14) Full independence of the mass media from concentrated private ownership and control by first means of workplace democracy over mandated balance of content in news and media production, heavy appropriation of economic rent in the broadcast spectrum, unconditional economic assistance (both technical and financial) for independent mass media cooperative startups – especially at more local levels, for purposes of media decentralization – and anti-inheritance transformation of all the relevant mass media properties under private ownership into cooperative property.

15) Eliminating information asymmetry by first means of establishing full, comprehensible, and participatory transparency in all governmental, commercial, and other related affairs;
16) Matching the globalized mobility of labour with the unconditional establishment of equal rights for everyone and real freedom of movement through instant legalization and open borders, thereby precluding the extreme exploitation of immigrants;
17) Legally considering all workplaces as being unionized for the purposes of collective bargaining and strikes, regardless of the presence or absence of formal unionization in each workplace;
18) Abolishing all public debts outright, suppressing excessive capital mobility associated with capital flights, ending the viability of imperialist conflicts and not just wars as vehicles for capital accumulation, and precluding all predatory financial practices towards the working class – all by first means of monopolizing all central, commercial, and consumer credit in the hands of a single transnational bank under absolute public ownership;
19) Applying not some but all economic rent beyond that of land towards exclusively public purposes;
20) Establishing an equal obligation on all able-bodied individuals to perform socially necessary labour, be it manual or mental; and
21) Extending litigation rights to include class-action lawsuits and speedy judgements against all non-workers who appropriate surplus value atop any economic rent applied towards exclusively public purposes.

[Kassad]

Miles, this is running in circles now. I'm reiterating points that already addressed your claims. I don't want to go into detail with your post because it's the same complaints I've already addressed. I want to reiterate that all of the statements made by Frances Villar were made at the Harlem 'Billionares -- Your Time is Up!' conference. This was a conference filled with socialists and workers who could probably tell this was a socialist platform from the signs that read 'The Workers Struggle Has No Borders' with Che Guevara on them. So say you plan on voting for her and you visit the VotePSL website. They would read her platform and see that it is a platform advocating a revolutionary stance on issues. Making the billionares pay for their crisis is not reformist. It is a workers solution to the economic crisis, but if you think rationally for even one second, you realize that under the capitalist and bourgeoisie-controlled oligarchy that is the United States of America, making billionares pay is not plausible. It will never happen under capitalism.

Will jobs be provided for everyone under capitalism? No. Will workers get bailed out under capitalism? No. Will labor unions ever be totally allowed? Will education be totally free? Will a total end to foreclosures and utility shutoffs ever happen in the corporate oligarchy? No, it won't. You need a socialist revolution for that, which anyone who is actually interested in Villar's campaign will likely comprehend. It isn't hard to see the revolutionary aspects of her campaign. The Party for Socialism and Libertation is consistently involved in union struggles, anti-imperialist demonstrations, anti-capitalist conferences, anti-police brutality demonstrations, pro-women's rights and LGBT rights demonstrations and anti-racism actions. This, along with our program which endorses the ideals of Marx, Engels and Lenin, promotes a revolutionary ideology. The platform and articles to the right of the main issues you're addressing show a stance of anti-imperialism, shown by her consistent struggle against war and occupation worldwide. Can any of the things we're struggling for be obtained without revolutionary struggle? No. That should be obvious. I'm honestly done addressing your posts because they're totally fallacious and show a lack of actual research into the campaign. From a workers perspective, will anyone new to socialism think that the use of the term 'socialism' is reformist? No, because they're reforms that can't be obtained under capitalism as our website says across the board. I'm sorry that you aren't pleased with the 'reformist' platform, but from a proletarian perspective, these reforms are revolutionary and necessary for workers emancipation.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Kassad, I believe that the SP-USA's electoral platform (http://socialistparty-usa.org/platform/) is much more radical than yours, despite your assertion that it is yet another "social-democratic" party. :(

[Kassad]

Kassad, I believe that the SP-USA's electoral platform (http://socialistparty-usa.org/platform/) is much more radical than yours, despite your assertion that it is yet another "social-democratic" party. :(

As I've stated before, Socialist Party USA calls for 'democratic revolution', which through their claim to 'make change' once they are a 'majority', infers that they are only going to use electoral processes to gain substantial support for liberation. Of course, this is incredibly reformist and absurd, as it assumes that workers emancipation can come through only electoral reform in the capitalist world. Socialist Party USA also claims that socialist revolutions, communism in which they put in quotes, has led to only military bureaucracy. Socialist Party USA isn't a Marxist or a Leninist party. They're advocating electoral reform, so they might as well be a more radical sect of the Democratic Party.

Here is the Party for Socialism and Liberation's primary platform entitled 'Why We're Running in the Elections.' It was released back when Gloria La Riva and Eugene Puryear announced their candidacy for president. Unlike Socialist Party USA, it actually mentions revolution. http://www.pslweb.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=7879

[Die Neue Zeit]

Did you even read the demands in that platform?

"We call for worker and community ownership and control of corporations within the framework of a decentralized and democratically determined economic plan."

[...]

"We support militant, united labor action including hot cargo agreements, and boycotts, factory committees, secondary and sympathy strikes, sit-down strikes, general strikes, and ultimately the expropriation of workplaces."

[...]

"We support the formation of publicly funded and democratically controlled senior centers that provide opportunities for social and recreational activities and community involvement."

[...]

"We call for public ownership and worker and community control of the pharmaceutical industry."

[...]

"We call for the right of prisoners to organize unions and cooperative groups to negotiate for better living conditions."

[...]

"We call for the immediate establishment of completely independent and democratically elected police control and oversight councils, with full power to fire police and to arrest, detain, and indict police officers who brutalize or abuse people or who commit any violation of laws or civil rights and liberties."

[Kassad]

Yes, I did. Where's the mention of revolution? Oh, here it is.


We strive for democratic revolutions - radical and fundamental changes in the structure and quality of economic, political, and personal relations - to abolish the power now exercised by the few who control great wealth and the government. The Socialist Party is a democratic, multi-tendency organization, with structure and practices visible and accessible to all members. (Source: www.sp-usa.org/ (http://www.sp-usa.org/))

Workers revolution? Socialist revolution? Proletarian revolution? Marxist revolution? No, democratic revolution. They're working for socialism through electoral participation and that's it. Sorry.

[Pogue]

So outside of apparently using elections as a means to gain attention, what methods do the PSL want to implement in roder to reach socialism?

[Kassad]

So outside of apparently using elections as a means to gain attention, what methods do the PSL want to implement in roder to reach socialism?

Through a workers revolution. We realize that crises will occur that become revolutionary opportunities, often times arising from the crisis of war, such as in Russia after World War I and China after the Sino-Japanese war. Of course, during times that are not revolutionary opportunities, Lenin said, in my own words, that revolutionaries must work to strengthen the party and use all means available of educating the working class, promoting class struggle and striving for the benefit of the proletariat. Until a revolutionary situation unfolds, we continue to strengthen our party. These situations, however, are totally unpredictable, so as revolutionaries, we must be ready for everything and realize that we must prepare for every possible scenario. It's impossible to be specific, as we don't know what this revolutionary situation will take the form of, but until then, we strengthen our party and struggle for that chance.

[Pogue]

Through a workers revolution. We realize that crises will occur that become revolutionary opportunities, often times arising from the crisis of war, such as in Russia after World War I and China after the Sino-Japanese war. Of course, during times that are not revolutionary opportunities, Lenin said, in my own words, that revolutionaries must work to strengthen the party and use all means available of educating the working class, promoting class struggle and striving for the benefit of the proletariat. Until a revolutionary situation unfolds, we continue to strengthen our party. These situations, however, are totally unpredictable, so as revolutionaries, we must be ready for everything and realize that we must prepare for every possible scenario. It's impossible to be specific, as we don't know what this revolutionary situation will take the form of, but until then, we strengthen our party and struggle for that chance.

So you mean you focus on a strong party ntil a revolutionary situaition happens? how do you think such a situation will happen and what will your party do when it happens?

[Martin Blank]

Miles, this is running in circles now. I'm reiterating points that already addressed your claims. I don't want to go into detail with your post because it's the same complaints I've already addressed.

Look, if you want to keep fooling yourself into thinking that your reformist "activism" is going to magically turn into a revolutionary movement, do it on your own time. Don't come here and try to pass around those gold bricks, or else I'll call you on it.


I want to reiterate that all of the statements made by Frances Villar were made at the Harlem 'Billionares -- Your Time is Up!' conference. This was a conference filled with socialists and workers who could probably tell this was a socialist platform from the signs that read 'The Workers Struggle Has No Borders' with Che Guevara on them. So say you plan on voting for her and you visit the VotePSL website. They would read her platform and see that it is a platform advocating a revolutionary stance on issues.

No. Let's say you're a worker walking down a street in New York and you get a flier for her campaign. You have no Internet access, so you cannot get online and see what the VotePSL website says. You cannot go to the conference because it's already past, and you didn't get a copy of the paper because you were already rushing to get to work. All you have is the flier, and that's all you end up knowing about Villar because the limited resources of your organization make a repeat visit to that street corner impossible. Then what?

One has to wonder toward whom you are really orienting your campaign, if you're intending to be so reliant on the Internet to spread your message.


Making the billionaires pay for their crisis is not reformist. It is a workers solution to the economic crisis, but if you think rationally for even one second, you realize that under the capitalist and bourgeoisie-controlled oligarchy that is the United States of America, making billionaires pay is not plausible. It will never happen under capitalism.

How is it not plausible? They've done it before. Or did I miss the day in history class when they talked about how Hoover's raising of the top tax rate from 25 to 63 percent was a "workers solution to the economic crisis"? Or when Roosevelt raised it further, ending up at a 94-percent tax rate by 1944?

Increased taxation on the wealthy is not a "workers solution". It is an economic demand of petty-bourgeois democrats. Even Marx knew this, and talked about it as early as 1850:


The democratic petty bourgeois, far from wanting to transform the whole society in the interests of the revolutionary proletarians, only aspire to a change in social conditions which will make the existing society as tolerable and comfortable for themselves as possible. They therefore demand above all else a reduction in government spending through a restriction of the bureaucracy and the transference of the major tax burden into the large landowners and bourgeoisie....


Will jobs be provided for everyone under capitalism? No. Will workers get bailed out under capitalism? No. Will labor unions ever be totally allowed? Will education be totally free? Will a total end to foreclosures and utility shutoffs ever happen in the corporate oligarchy? No, it won't. You need a socialist revolution for that, which anyone who is actually interested in Villar's campaign will likely comprehend.

"Will jobs be provided for everyone under capitalism?" It's been done before. If the capitalists feel it is necessary to avoid a social explosion, they'll do it again. Sure, a lot of those jobs will be at starvation wages and under brutal conditions, but they'll be "jobs for all".

"Will workers get bailed out under capitalism?" Bailed out? Not exactly. But a significant section of them bought off and made a buffer against the rest of the class, which itself will get a significant increase in its overall standard of living? Yes. Again, it's been done before.

"Will labor unions ever be totally allowed?" Yes. It's been done before. But being "totally allowed" is not the same as being able to fundamentally shift the balance of power in favor of the working class. Of course, you didn't say anything about that.

"Will education be totally free?" Depending on where you go, yes. It's been done before.

"Will a total end to foreclosures and utility shutoffs ever happen in the corporate oligarchy?" Doubtful. Highly doubtful. On this point, we agree. However, calling for a moratorium on foreclosures will not stop it, either. The recent killing of a homeowner in the Detroit area by local police serving a writ of eviction -- a writ that was illegal since his mortgage was part of the recent moratorium legislation passed -- demonstrates that.


It isn't hard to see the revolutionary aspects of her campaign. The Party for Socialism and Liberation is consistently involved in union struggles, anti-imperialist demonstrations, anti-capitalist conferences, anti-police brutality demonstrations, pro-women's rights and LGBT rights demonstrations and anti-racism actions. This, along with our program which endorses the ideals of Marx, Engels and Lenin, promotes a revolutionary ideology.

Being "involved", "consistently" or otherwise, isn't the issue. It's what you do when you're there that matters. And, again, this is where we have our fundamental disagreements. You may be able to talk the talk, but you do not walk the walk.


The platform and articles to the right of the main issues you're addressing show a stance of anti-imperialism, shown by her consistent struggle against war and occupation worldwide. Can any of the things we're struggling for be obtained without revolutionary struggle? No. That should be obvious.

Obvious to whom? I've already showed you how the bourgeoisie has co-opted these demands in the past, and pointed out how, if it is advantageous to them, they will do so again.


I'm honestly done addressing your posts because they're totally fallacious and show a lack of actual research into the campaign.

You're not getting away that easy.

You've failed to demonstrate how your electoral platform is anything more than warmed-over liberalism -- how it is anything other than sub-reformist. All your idealistic assertions about how "r-r-r-revolutionary" the PSL is mean nothing if you're not actually doing anything revolutionary. There's a lot of smoke, but there's no fire. And you and LaRiva and the Becker brothers can blow that smoke wherever you like, but you're not going to be allowed to do it with impunity.

Your demands are those of petty-bourgeois democracy, and thus your orientation is to that same petty bourgeoisie. Petty-bourgeois democrats like to rail against the "billionaires" and "Wall Street" and the "big landlords", too. They want to "make them pay", too. And they'll call for shifting the cost of the crisis on to the backs of the wealthy, for de-prioritizing debt payments to banks, for restoring the free tuition status to CUNY, for safe and modern classrooms, etc., etc. And a lot of them will call for "socialism", too -- their idea of "socialism", that is. And they may even talk about Cuba and Venezuela, and even consider themselves "Marxist-Leninist".

It's an old game -- over 160 years old, in fact:


... all these fractions claim to be ‘republicans’ or ’reds’, just as at the present time members of the republican petty bourgeoisie in France call themselves ‘socialists’.

You're welcome to point to my use of Marx's analysis and accuse me of putting "too much focus on theory". To be honest, I don't think you have enough focus. I may not consider myself a Leninist, but he was right when he wrote that without revolutionary theory, there can be no revolutionary movement. But this also implies that you're actually applying your theory in your practical work.


From a workers perspective, will anyone new to socialism think that the use of the term 'socialism' is reformist? No, because they're reforms that can't be obtained under capitalism as our website says across the board. I'm sorry that you aren't pleased with the 'reformist' platform, but from a proletarian perspective, these reforms are revolutionary and necessary for workers emancipation.

If you were coming from a proletarian perspective, you might have a point. But your perspective is that of petty-bourgeois democracy calling itself "socialism". Either you include the revolutionary perspective in your electoral platform, or you don't. And if you don't, you cannot call the platform revolutionary. If your intention is simply to fight for some piecemeal reforms, then be honest about that in your platform, but also expect that you will take heat for it.

For all your talk of "socialism", your platform is nothing more than an attempt to improve capitalist society and that's it. You want capitalism to work for you in the short term, with all talk of "socialism" reserved for speeches at conferences. This isn't revolutionary and it sure as hell isn't "Marxist".


Our concern cannot simply be to modify private property, but to abolish it, not to hush up class antagonisms but to abolish classes, not to improve the existing society but to found a new one.

If your practical activity cannot directly reflect this simple, one-sentence statement, then you have no business calling yourself revolutionary ... much less a communist or "Marxist".

P.S.: And if you are going to continue to beg capitalism to implement such piecemeal reforms, remember that it's basic courtesy to say "please".

[Kassad]

P.S.: And if you are going to continue to beg capitalism to implement such piecemeal reforms, remember that it's basic courtesy to say "please".

So, 'please,' as in, 'please go fuck yourself?' I've addressed your irrelevant bile already. I'm not wasting any more of my time on it. When fliers are released and printed for the campaign, I'll be sure to let you know and you can proofread it for us. We apologize that our anti-imperialism and anti-capitalist party does not appeal to you. While you continue pouting, we will continue struggling for union rights, equality and workers control. Sorry if revolution is too reformist for your kind. Consider yourself ignored.

Also, here's Carlos Alvarez's platform for Mayor of Los Angeles. This is mostly for others to read and observe, whereas you can nitpick and act like a high-and-mighty revolutionary for criticizing us poor, uneducated reformists.



WHAT CARLOS ALVAREZ STANDS FOR

My campaign is different from other candidates because I am a socialist. As a 22-year-old community activist and a member of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, I have a socialist perspective. I believe that the vast wealth of society should be enjoyed by the people who create it—the people who work for a living each day. With all the failures of the current profit system, if there was ever a time to discuss socialism, that time is NOW. There should not be exploitation and inequality.

My campaign calls for every person in Los Angeles to have a job, food, decent housing, access to free, quality healthcare and education, and a clean environment. Every worker should have the right to be in a union. The minimum wage should be 15 dollars per hour. I believe these are not privileges, but fundamental human rights. As mayor, I would fight tooth and nail to make these demands a reality.

My campaign believes that everyone in the city of Los Angeles should have adequate shelter. I demand an immediate end to all foreclosures and evictions. No one should be homeless, while luxury lofts sit empty downtown.

Incumbent Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has only helped increase the wealth of big business, while telling workers to accept cuts. He has endlessly funded the LAPD, despite its rampant and racist police brutality targeting communities of color. My campaign is a vehicle for working-class people to fight back. Here are some of my campaign's demands.

FIGHTING L.A.'s CORPORATE BOSSES


Full employment—no layoffs. Create good, high paying jobs for all. Job training for youth & unemployed.
No cutbacks for social services. No layoffs for city workers.
Housing is a right for all—Immediate moratorium on all foreclosures & evictions. Stop gentrification & build affordable housing now.
Free, high quality education from pre-school through college for everyone.
Free, quality healthcare for all L.A. residents.
Raise L.A.’s minimum wage to $15/hour.
Stop union-busting, expand the right to organize & card-check recognition.
Stop environmental destruction—Make the polluters pay.
Steep taxes on all big banks, corporations and developers.
EQUAL RIGHTS FOR ALL: NO TO RACISM & BIGOTRY


Stop racist police brutality and mass incarceration.
Community control over the police. Create an all-civilian elected board.
Full rights for all immigrants. Make Los Angeles a sanctuary city!
Repeal all anti-gang injunctions that criminalize young people of color.
Defend women’s reproductive rights. Free abortion on demand for all.
Invalidate Prop. 8. Legalize same-sex marriage & LGBT equality now.
Full equality for disabled people.
Lower the voting age to 16-years-old.
SOCIALISM--NOT EXPLOITATION



End the rule of billionaires & militarists—fight for workers democracy.
We need an economy based on people’s needs, not making the rich richer.



So you mean you focus on a strong party ntil a revolutionary situaition happens? how do you think such a situation will happen and what will your party do when it happens?


I think such a situation will come when the bourgeoisie is in serious crisis. After World War I, the Tsarist regime in Russia was having incredible complications trying to maintain control and to suppress revolutionary movements. Eventually, with a large enough economic crisis, or possibly with the failure of the United States' war machine in foreign nations, the bourgeoisie will be crippled enough to allow revolutionaries to take action. At that point, our party will attempt to provide revolutionary guidance and leadership. Uniting the proletariat and the working class is essential for obtaining revolutionary socialism. Revolutionaries, such as in our party, must work consistently to prepare to combat counterrevolution and to defend socialist gains at all costs. This cannot be done by a loosely-tied group of people. It must be a united and ideologically sound party that can provide leadership, or else, any socialist gains will inevitably be rolled back by bourgeois resistance.

[RHIZOMES]

I hereby suggest these demands and others be raised in the PSL's electoral platform:

1) The ecological reduction of the normal workweek – including time for workplace democracy, workers’ self-management, etc. through workplace committees and assemblies – to a participatory-democratic maximum of 32 hours or less without loss of pay or benefits, the minimum provision of double-time pay or salary/contract equivalent for all hours worked over the normal workweek and over 8 hours a day, the prohibition of compulsory overtime, and the provision of one hour off with pay for every two hours of overtime;
2) Full, lawsuit-enforced freedom of class-strugglist assembly and association for ordinary people, even within the military, free especially from anti-employment reprisals, police interference such as from agents provocateurs, and formal political disenfranchisement;
3) The expansion of the right to bear arms and to general self-defense towards enabling the formation of people’s militias based on free training, especially in connection with class-strugglist association, and also free from police interference such as from agents provocateurs;
4) The expansion of local autonomy on questions of local development through participatory budgeting and oversight by local assemblies, as well as through unconditional economic assistance (both technical and financial) for localities seeking to establish local currency alternatives to government money;
5) The combating of two-party facades and degenerative yet professional personality politics in the various legislatures and executives through the institution, on the basis of compensation being at or slightly lower than the median equivalent for professional and other skilled workers, of the closed-list, proportionally representative form that allows mere parties, including smaller ones, to arbitrarily appoint to and remove from the halls of power the party-affiliated legislators, cabinet officials, and chief executives;
6) The combating of the anti-meritocratic personal inheritances of both poverty by children and ruling-class wealth, with the latter entailing the abolition of all remaining nobilities and the application of all funds derived from public, anti-inheritance appropriations of not some but all the relevant productive or other non-possessive properties (that would otherwise be immediately inherited through legal will or through gifting and other loopholes) towards exclusively public purposes;
7) Socio-income democracy through direct proposals and rejections, at the national level and above, regarding all formal and effective tax rates on all types of income – such as ordinary employment income, self-employment and managerial income, individual property income such as interest, both individual and corporate business income, both individual and corporate dividend income, and both individual and corporate capital gains – annual plebiscites with the right to create or raise upper tax rates on a steeply graduated basis, including changes to alternative minimum tax rates, transfer pricing tax rates, and gross-ups or multipliers for income outside of ordinary employment;
8) The application of not some but all economic rent of land towards exclusively public purposes – such as the abolition of all indirect and other class-regressive taxation – by first means of land value “taxation”;
9) Direct guarantees of a real livelihood to all workers, including unemployment and work incapacitation provisions – all based on a participatory-democratic normal workweek, all beyond bare subsistence minimums, and all before any indirect considerations like public health insurance – and including the universalization of annual, non-deflationary adjustments for all non-executive remunerations, pensions, and insurance benefits to at least match rising costs of living (not notorious government underestimations due to faulty measures like chain weighting, or even underhanded selections of the lower of core inflation and general inflation);
10) The institution of income-based or preferrably class-based affirmative action, especially in the sphere of education;
11) The mandatory private- and public-sector recognition of professional education, other higher education, and related work experience “from abroad,” along with the transnational standardization of such education and the institution of other measures to counter the underemployment of educated immigrants;
12) The abolition of all intellectual property laws and of all restrictions on the non-commodity economy of peer-to-peer sharing, open-source programming, and the like;
13) The genuine end of “free markets” – including in unemployment resulting from workplace closures, mass sackings, and mass layoffs – by first means of non-selective encouragement of, and unconditional economic assistance (both technical and financial) for, pre-cooperative worker buyouts of existing enterprises and enterprise operations.
14) Full independence of the mass media from concentrated private ownership and control by first means of workplace democracy over mandated balance of content in news and media production, heavy appropriation of economic rent in the broadcast spectrum, unconditional economic assistance (both technical and financial) for independent mass media cooperative startups – especially at more local levels, for purposes of media decentralization – and anti-inheritance transformation of all the relevant mass media properties under private ownership into cooperative property.

15) Eliminating information asymmetry by first means of establishing full, comprehensible, and participatory transparency in all governmental, commercial, and other related affairs;
16) Matching the globalized mobility of labour with the unconditional establishment of equal rights for everyone and real freedom of movement through instant legalization and open borders, thereby precluding the extreme exploitation of immigrants;
17) Legally considering all workplaces as being unionized for the purposes of collective bargaining and strikes, regardless of the presence or absence of formal unionization in each workplace;
18) Abolishing all public debts outright, suppressing excessive capital mobility associated with capital flights, ending the viability of imperialist conflicts and not just wars as vehicles for capital accumulation, and precluding all predatory financial practices towards the working class – all by first means of monopolizing all central, commercial, and consumer credit in the hands of a single transnational bank under absolute public ownership;
19) Applying not some but all economic rent beyond that of land towards exclusively public purposes;
20) Establishing an equal obligation on all able-bodied individuals to perform socially necessary labour, be it manual or mental; and
21) Extending litigation rights to include class-action lawsuits and speedy judgements against all non-workers who appropriate surplus value atop any economic rent applied towards exclusively public purposes.

I'm sure that could be cut down a few hundred words and still be revolutionary in demands. What sort of uninterested passerby (The thing election platforms are made for) would stop and read that on the street if someone gave her THAT pamphlet? I think that deeper stuff should be in the paper/website and for the candidate to expound upon in debates and the like.

[Martin Blank]

So, 'please,' as in, 'please go fuck yourself?'

Ooh, wow! You kiss your mother with that mouth?

Throughout this entire exchange, I have kept it on a strictly political level. This is not personal. And yet, you have chosen the low road of cheap insults and cursing. Some would say that resorting to such tactics is an admission of defeat. I tend to think it merely exposes the class differences between us. As a worker, I can take criticism -- been there, done that. But the petty bourgeois, true to their training as a future manager and boss, is intolerant of criticism. And when he or she is confronted with criticism from someone they think of as a natural inferior, they lash out with personalistic invective and vitriol. It's an old tactic, usually used when the "be nice" propaganda fails to work.


I've addressed your irrelevant bile already. I'm not wasting any more of my time on it.

Actually, what you've attempted to do is confuse and conflate issues. At first, I thought it might be because you simply didn't understand. But now it's clear that it was a conscious effort to dodge the criticism and the issue. You cannot directly address the fundamental differences over the application of theory to practice, so you resort to name-calling and personalism.


When fliers are released and printed for the campaign, I'll be sure to let you know and you can proofread it for us.

You could certainly use the help with political content, given the wholesale lack of it in your fliers.


We apologize that our anti-imperialism and anti-capitalist party does not appeal to you.

Your "anti-imperialism" is the social-democratic posturing of North American leftists who don't have to get their hands dirty. Your "anti-capitalism" is an illusion meant to draw people's attention away from your sub-reformist "activism". No, that kind of charlatanism doesn't appeal to me or to any other class-conscious worker with more than five minutes of real-world experience in the class struggle.


While you continue pouting, we will continue struggling for union rights, equality and workers control.

Given what your platform says, you're not "struggling" for any of this. Instead, you're struggling for an improvement in the capitalist system, a modification of capitalist private property, and a moderating of the twin systems of exploitation and oppression. You compromise with the exploiting and oppressing classes, even going so far as letting elements from those classes run your organization.

If you are working class, you're a traitor. If you're not, you're a wolf in sheep's clothing.


Sorry if revolution is too reformist for your kind.

For all your words, the practical reality of your "revolution" is little more than replay of the failures of the 20th century: the rebellion of the petty bourgeoisie for the sake of securing its own power over and against the working class. Your refusal to seriously and concretely answer criticism of your anti-working class politics stands as a tacit acceptance that your views are exactly what I've said. You're a political coward.


Consider yourself ignored.

You can ignore me, but you cannot ignore the failures and crisis of your own political perspective. You cannot ignore your practical reformism and how that method eats away at your oft-stated revolutionism. I've done my part in this debate. From here on, it will only be your nagging conscience (if you have one) that you'll have to settle accounts with.


Also, here's Carlos Alvarez's platform for Mayor of Los Angeles. This is mostly for others to read and observe, whereas you can nitpick and act like a high-and-mighty revolutionary for criticizing us poor, uneducated reformists.

I only have one question about this: Why couldn't you have a similar platform developed for Villar? It's a vast improvement. There are still problems, yes, but there's more to work with.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I'm sure that could be cut down a few hundred words and still be revolutionary in demands. What sort of uninterested passerby (The thing election platforms are made for) would stop and read that on the street if someone gave her THAT pamphlet? I think that deeper stuff should be in the paper/website and for the candidate to expound upon in debates and the like.

Fair enough, comrade. I copied and pasted from a suggested formal program, which is distinct from a more sloganeering "action program" and from an electoral platform/program/manifesto.

[Pogue]

I think such a situation will come when the bourgeoisie is in serious crisis. After World War I, the Tsarist regime in Russia was having incredible complications trying to maintain control and to suppress revolutionary movements. Eventually, with a large enough economic crisis, or possibly with the failure of the United States' war machine in foreign nations, the bourgeoisie will be crippled enough to allow revolutionaries to take action. At that point, our party will attempt to provide revolutionary guidance and leadership. Uniting the proletariat and the working class is essential for obtaining revolutionary socialism. Revolutionaries, such as in our party, must work consistently to prepare to combat counterrevolution and to defend socialist gains at all costs. This cannot be done by a loosely-tied group of people. It must be a united and ideologically sound party that can provide leadership, or else, any socialist gains will inevitably be rolled back by bourgeois resistance.

Seems like basic Marx-Leninism to me, so nothing controversial in that respect, obviously I disagree with such an approach for a number of reasons.

How will you guys act differently form the Bolsheviks did, in a revolutionary period?

[Martin Blank]

How will you guys act differently form the Bolsheviks did, in a revolutionary period?

In the period leading up to the revolution, the Bolsheviks were tolerant -- even accepting -- of criticism, and didn't resort to personalism and cursing when they were put in a corner theoretically. That's how the neo-Stalinite PSL will act differently.

[Kassad]

In the period leading up to the revolution, the Bolsheviks were tolerant -- even accepting -- of criticism, and didn't resort to personalism and cursing when they were put in a corner theoretically. That's how the neo-Stalinite PSL will act differently.

Put into a corner? Sorry, but it appears that very few people can even comprehend where you're coming from. I'm up to two private messages and a profile post saying that your argument is totally fallacious. I'm not backed into a corner theoretically, as you so ignorantly suggest. If anything, I realize that I have a lot better uses of my time than addressing redundant and fallacious arguments trying to claim that the party isn't putting Marxism into practice, despite being the most active Marxist party in the United States. We accept all criticisms, but we will defend our party from opposition as we see fit. Irrelevant and baseless arguments are to be fought off, which I've done sufficiently. Also, if swearing truly offends you so much, I'd ask that you go outside for a little while and take a look at the world we're living in. Sorry, but I'm not going to talk like a Catholic nun just because it bothers you.

Of course, the symbol of 'I've been intellectually destroted' is the use of the term 'Stalinist' in any regard. I've addressed every word you've said and you're merely being repetitive. I could say we'll wait and see until the Workers Party in America starts promoting Marxism through activism, but I might be in a nursing home by then. If it advocates Marxism, promotes Marxism, struggles through Marxism and has all Marxist members, guess what? -- It's probably a Marxist party. There's a big difference between not knowing how to address you and not caring. Pick whatever floats your boat.

[Martin Blank]

Put into a corner? Sorry, but it appears that very few people can even comprehend where you're coming from. I'm up to two private messages and a profile post saying that your argument is totally fallacious.

Wow, two PMs and a profile post?! I bet I can guess who they're from. Obviously, there are a lot of self-described socialists and communists who share your reformist method. That's why you've all failed for over a century to bring about the revolution you say you want. What's that definition of insanity, again? "Doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result each time".


I'm not backed into a corner theoretically, as you so ignorantly suggest. If anything, I realize that I have a lot better uses of my time than addressing redundant and fallacious arguments trying to claim that the party isn't putting Marxism into practice, despite being the most active Marxist party in the United States.

Being active doesn't equal "putting Marxism into practice" unless your activity is actually organized around application of communist principle. The PSL doesn't -- not in ANSWER, not in anything.


We accept all criticisms, but we will defend our party from opposition as we see fit. Irrelevant and baseless arguments are to be fought off, which I've done sufficiently. Also, if swearing truly offends you so much, I'd ask that you go outside for a little while and take a look at the world we're living in. Sorry, but I'm not going to talk like a Catholic nun just because it bothers you.

It doesn't offend me, but if that's all you have left, then you certainly haven't "fought off" the criticisms, "sufficiently" or otherwise. All you've done is duck and dodge the issues, try to throw mud in people's eyes and confuse those watching your little dance. Such political cowardice, that offends me.


Of course, the symbol of 'I've been intellectually destroyed' is the use of the term 'Stalinist' in any regard.

Fine. My apologies for using the term "neo-Stalinite" to describe you (the Uncle Joe avatar must have thrown me). Instead, I'll stick to the more proper description of the PSL as a left-social-democratic, petty-bourgeois socialist sect with a national socialist approach to "anti-imperialism" and a sub-reformist method of practice.

It's a little longer, but more accurate.


I've addressed every word you've said and you're merely being repetitive.

If I'm being repetitive, it's because you're not listening.


I could say we'll wait and see until the Workers Party in America starts promoting Marxism through activism, but I might be in a nursing home by then.

We promote communism through activity guided by communist principles, not blind "activism" meant to keep the young and working-class "grunts" busy while the petty-bourgeois "leaders" come up with new excuses to keep themselves in positions of power.


If it advocates Marxism, promotes Marxism, struggles through Marxism and has all Marxist members, guess what? -- It's probably a Marxist party.

And if it advocates petty-bourgeois socialism dressed up as "Marxism", promotes groveling before the capitalist class, struggles for reformist and sub-reformist demands, and has members of the exploiting and oppressing classes as the bulk of its leadership, guess what? -- It's probably the PSL (or Workers World, or the CPUSA, or the SWP, or the SEP, or the Sparts, or...).


There's a big difference between not knowing how to address you and not caring. Pick whatever floats your boat.

Well, I've enjoyed our little exchanges. Hopefully, they have been illuminating for those who are still formulating their own political perspective, and maybe have planted some seeds among the hard-headed.

We'll probably run into each other someday at some national or regional public event (are you coming to Detroit for the "People's Summit" event?). If so, I may even offer to buy you a drink. But that will depend on you.

[Lolshevik]

Miles, in your opinion, what would constitute principled communist activity? I really don't think it's fair to characterize the PSL as a reformist party because they make immediate demands that appeal to the most urgent day-to-day struggles of the working class.

Of course, you are right that historically there is a danger if a party emphasizes reforms over the ultimate revolutionary goal. But the PSL does not do this. We consistently state that capitalism is an inherently oppressive system, that it ultimately cannot support the interests of the working class, that it has got to go.

Advocating a moratorium on foreclosures in NYC is not a betrayal of the working class. If a Party does not speak to the immediate needs of the working class, how will it be able to trust them on the ultimate question of revolution?

[Die Neue Zeit]

Although I'm not Miles, the kind of reforms I suggested above (quoted by Arizona Bay) indicate the kind of radical reforms that need to be pushed. The demands pushed for by the PSL are either too social-democratic or too progressive.

[Kassad]

You've basically spent a lot of time just saying that your kind of Marxist application is correct, whereas ours is wrong. You're somehow inferring that there is a dogmatic approach to applying Marxism. We believe a comprehensive understanding of capitalist contradictions comes through struggle. This is the workers struggle; the struggle for workers rights, women's rights, minority equality and an end to imperialism. You may see that as reformist, but we believe that this manner of promoting revolution helps see the failure of capitalism in the past, the contradictions in the present and the potential for a socialist future. For some reason, that isn't enough for you. That's your opinion. Again, I don't care.


We'll probably run into each other someday at some national or regional public event (are you coming to Detroit for the "People's Summit" event?). If so, I may even offer to buy you a drink. But that will depend on you.

I forgot about this. I wouldn't expect the Party for Socialism and Liberation of ANSWER to be present en masse, since we don't have much of a presence in Michigan. I'm a minor, so sticking around in Detroit for something that is a multi-day event is almost impossible for me. Still, what date does it start and end again? What's going to be happening on specific days?


Although I'm not Miles, the kind of reforms I suggested above (quoted by Arizona Bay) indicate the kind of radical reforms that need to be pushed. The demands pushed for by the PSL are either too social-democratic or too progressive.


The PSL is a revolutionary Marxist party in the United States that struggles for socialism. We want a revolution; and, we work hard to make it happen.


Our party knows that revolution is necessary. We fight for reforms that ease the burden on workers and oppressed people, but ultimately reforms are not enough. We know that revolutions are made in the streets, in the factories and other workplaces, and in the military units when workers—in and out of uniform—become conscious that the power of the capitalist bosses and the generals must be replaced with the power of the people. This is the message that the PSL will bring through its intervention in the 2008 elections.

The U.S. electoral system is reflective of a capitalist plutocracy. We live under a government of, by and for the wealthy. These politicians—from McCain to Obama; from Huckabee to Clinton; from Romney to Edwards and on down the line—are beholden to their corporate backers.




We want to speak to the tens of millions of working-class and oppressed people who desire real change but will not get it through the capitalist electoral process. We want to fight shoulder to shoulder with our class—the working class—in every struggle against the profit system. We want to be a catalyst to raise working-class consciousness in every arena.

Most importantly, we want to spread the ideas of revolution, of true change. We know that change is possible; we know that it will happen. We also know that it takes an energetic struggle.

All of these demands and statements are made from the VotePSL website. All of the petty, redundant and frankly, absurd assertions that you have made in this thread have been debunked already, but since you aren't convinced apparently, I don't know what else to tell you. You support a party that doesn't even call for revolution and you've dodged it every single time I've mentioned it. Sorry if 'revolution' is a little too progressive for you.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Kassad, I suggest reading this short work to appreciate another aspect of what I'm trying to say:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/03/24.htm

Some of the immediate demands raised by Marx and Engels are more radical than the PSL's.

[Kassad]

Jacob, I'm tired of your redundant crap. First off, a party you support doesn't even advocate revolution. Where is your rationalization for that? Secondly, I edited my post above with quotes from the VotePSL website which basically refute your claims, push them down the stairs, wrap them in a fine, quality rug and dump them into a lake. Sorry, but calling for workers democracy, proletarian rule of society, an end to imperialism and the destruction of capitalism isn't reformist, despite how elitist your perspective may be.

[Martin Blank]

Miles, in your opinion, what would constitute principled communist activity? I really don't think it's fair to characterize the PSL as a reformist party because they make immediate demands that appeal to the most urgent day-to-day struggles of the working class.

The difference here is in two parts: 1) what kind of immediate demands you raise, and 2) toward whom your demands are addressed.

Communist demands, even of an immediate character, must stem from our principles. Flexible and concrete, yes, but based on the principles of the class struggle and the need for the overthrow of capitalist society (even if such an act is not immediately on the agenda). The first thing we would do is analyze the material conditions as they exist, what the most pressing issues facing working people currently are and what objectively stands in the way of their constituting a revolutionary movement. We would look not only at the economic, but also the political, cultural and social issues. We would place emphasis on analyzing the unresolved and outstanding democratic issues that exist, especially in relation to those who face superoppression in this society.

The demands would not be formulated as an appeal to the capitalists or their state. Rather, they would be formulated either as calls to our fellow workers or, in the case of electoral campaigns and the like, as declarations of what we would do and implement.

Platform statements have the luxury of precision. You can say what needs to be said in a properly-formulated platform. Our Platform (http://www.workers-party.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=54&Itemid=62), the platform of the Workers Party in America, is what I would consider to be such a statement. Such a platform statement, in my opinion, serves as the basis for slogans and demands that are calls to working people. Even when formulating short slogans and demands, usually meant as headlines of leaflets, and/or for signs and banners, you can still maintain a principled and revolutionary approach.

For example, instead of saying "Stop the War", which orients the demand to the capitalists and their state, we would say "Organize to Stop the War" and/or "Organize and Strike to Stop the War", which orients the demand to our brothers and sisters. Demands can either empower or dis-empower the people you organize. Demands like "Stop the War" and "Jobs, not Bombs" are dis-empowering slogans, because the people you seek to organize around these demands have no role in making them a reality apart from being a body at a protest. A demand like "Organize to Stop the War", on the other hand, is a guide to and points out a course of action that those you seek to organize can take on as their own; it is an empowering slogan, because it provides political leadership that others can turn into a practical reality.

If your organization advocates workers' control of production, then the slogans, demands and statements you issue should state that clearly. In an electoral platform, for example, advocating the seizure, re-opening and re-tooling of all failing and failed factories under workers' control would be an immediate demand. It would be a call to action for the workers whose support you seek.

And this leads into the other aspect of revolutionary activity. If you raise such slogans, demands and statements as those above publicly, your day-to-day activity should be centered around seeing that they move from education to agitation to implementation. If the focus of your work is antiwar activity, and your central slogan is "Organize to Stop the War", then your daily work should center on that organizing: daily visits to workplaces, meetings with co-workers and neighbors, helping to organize currents in existing unions, helping to organize revolutionary industrial unions where none exist, helping to organize neighborhood workers' assemblies and committees, organizing and helping to organize public events to promote the work you're doing -- the goal being to make your slogan a reality.

But it's more than that. By organizing in this way and around slogans that are empowering for working people -- that provide workers with the self-education and skills to organize and govern themselves -- you're organizing more than a movement to stop a war, you're organizing a movement to overthrow capitalism. Each small step in the organizing you did allows for a greater step toward the defeat of capitalism and its state. Revolutionary industrial unionism provides for the alternative structures that usher in the transition to the new society. If you've reached a point where you've succeeded in fulfilling the task of organizing to stop the war, then you should be able to look at what you've done and see more than an antiwar protest movement. You should see the solid foundation of a revolutionary movement, a movement that can then begin to tackle greater issues, up to and including control of essential services in society -- i.e., the beginning of the new society within the rotting shell of the old.

This is the difference between what we do, and what the PSL does. At the end of the day, what is the PSL going to be left with when the war is over and ANSWER's antiwar mission is complete (or obsolete)? The party might have some more members, but the movement is gone.

Communists don't build protest movements; we build revolutionary movements that stage protests. Our road might be longer and more difficult. It might not be glamorous. It might not make us media darlings or "leftwing poster children". C-SPAN might not be our friend. But it gets the real job done.


Of course, you are right that historically there is a danger if a party emphasizes reforms over the ultimate revolutionary goal. But the PSL does not do this. We consistently state that capitalism is an inherently oppressive system, that it ultimately cannot support the interests of the working class, that it has got to go.

But saying one thing (that capitalism "has got to go") and doing another (limiting your activity to reforms and appealing to the capitalists) is the same failing strategy that has been practiced throughout the 20th century. Before the PSL, it was Workers World; before them, the Socialist Workers Party; before them, the "official" Communist Party; before them, the Socialist Party. You're doing the same thing each of these parties has done, expecting that if you do it the outcome will be different. It will not be different. The problem is not who is doing it; the problem is what you're doing.


Advocating a moratorium on foreclosures in NYC is not a betrayal of the working class. If a Party does not speak to the immediate needs of the working class, how will it be able to trust them on the ultimate question of revolution?

Recent experience has convinced me that advocating a moratorium on foreclosures is, at best, a worthless demand. The various moratoria that have been adopted recently, including the one passed by Congress and signed into law by Obama, have not stopped evictions from being pursued by the banks and have not stopped the cops from attempting to serve the writs. The police murder of Mark Fussner made that all too clear. At this point, calling for a moratorium means, at best, a paper gesture with little teeth. At worst, it is setting people up to be killed by the cops.

Instead of calling for a moratorium, we should be advocating the cancellation of all mortgage debts up to a certain amount (Our Platform says $100,000 -- at this point, I'd probably advocate that number be raised to at least $250,000) as something that only we as working people can implement through taking over. Banks that refuse to recognize the cancellation should be seized, transformed into public property and placed under workers' control. Any attempt by cops to enforce a writ of eviction should be met with armed workers' self-defense.

You want to win trust? Fight for something meaningful, not empty gestures.

[Martin Blank]

I forgot about this. I wouldn't expect the Party for Socialism and Liberation of ANSWER to be present en masse, since we don't have much of a presence in Michigan. I'm a minor, so sticking around in Detroit for something that is a multi-day event is almost impossible for me. Still, what date does it start and end again? What's going to be happening on specific days?

The schedule of events is on the website that the People's Summit folks have set up -- www.peoplessummit.org.

[Leo]

Of course, the symbol of 'I've been intellectually destroyed' is the use of the term 'Stalinist' in any regard. Regardless, this does not negate the fact that yours indeed is a Stalinist party. Stalinism is a political term which does not mean praising Stalin the individual. Marxists have considered the Khrushchev era USSR to be Stalinist as well as Mao's China for example. Stalinism means the ideological germs of the counter-revolution in all it's nationalism, it's declaration of the possibility of socialism in one country and call for support of socialist motherlands that is the Stalinist regimes.

Now, here's the things I came up with from the PSL website some time ago:

Quote:
Originally Posted by PSL, What is socialism

...there have been many cases where the working class has been able to lead successful revolutions, removing the capitalist class from power. The 1917 Russian Revolution, the 1945 Korean Revolution, the 1949 Chinese Revolution and the 1959 Cuban Revolution all gave new experiences and lessons in the possibilities of building socialism—inspired by the Paris Commune.

Some important lessons have emerged from all these experiences in building socialism. In the first place, all these revolutions took the ownership of the means of production away from private owners and made them publicly owned. The revolutionary governments sought to steer the economy not through capitalist commodity relations but by means of a planned economy. Foreign trade, once the business of the biggest companies conducted for the purpose of private profit, remained exclusively in the hands of the state.

All of these means were viewed by the working-class leaders and governments as means to achieve socialism (...)

The countries that have tried and are trying to build socialism are not utopias, nor are they paradise on earth. They all face enormous problems, including scarcity and aggression by U.S. imperialism. The science of rational economic planning has progressed in fits and starts. Some socialist projects, like the Soviet Union and the Eastern European socialist camp, were not able to withstand the pressures and have, like the Paris Commune, been defeated.

Nevertheless, these revolutions show the outlines of a new society where the working class is the ruling class. The Soviet Union lasted over 70 years without unemployment or economic recessions or depressions. China was able to feed its huge population for the first time in history. Cuba has maintained educational levels unseen in Latin America—not to mention in much of the developed world.
Emphasis mine. Source: http://www.pslweb.org/site/News2?pag...rticle&id=5125 (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.pslweb.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5125)

Besides from the support given to various Stalinist regimes, the more public support given to the Castroist regime and the glorification of Stalinists such as Che Guevara and Ho Chi Minh which can be seen in the website too sort of hints the direction as well as the tradition.

Now, it is true, the PSL does not seem to be praising Stalin in their website, infact when you search Stalin in the website, only one article, which attempts to analyze the United Nations comes up that even mentions Stalin. Nothing negative is said of him in it either:

Quote:

The Soviet government under Stalin’s leadership feared that the United Nations would create a "new world order" under the control of the United States, Britain and other imperialist countries. Toward the end of World War II, long and complex negotiations took place between the U.S. and Soviet governments regarding the United Nations. The two countries were wartime allies against Hitler’s Germany and Japan, but the outlines of the postwar U.S.-Soviet confrontation were already taking shape in 1944-45.

Stalin wanted to prevent the wartime alliance from devolving into open conflict in 1945. Thus, the Soviets acquiesced to the formation of the United Nations but only with the condition that the Soviet Union would be included in a Security Council and as one of five permanent members who wield a veto for any decision. The arrangement was designed to prevent the imperialist countries from using the United Nations to gang up on the one socialist country, using a supposedly "world body" to impose imperialist dictates that threatened the Soviet Union or its allies.
Later, after the Soviet government was overthrown in 1991, the United Nations reverted to its originally intended function as an essentially unfettered instrument of U.S. global policy.
Emphasis mine. Source: http://www.pslweb.org/site/News2?pag...rticle&id=5787 (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.pslweb.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5787)

I think it is quite clear that the PSL is a Stalinist party in every meaningful political sense. I am inclined to think that the reason why Mr. Moustache isn't praised in the website is because defending him nowadays makes it a little more harder to attract young liberals to party ranks.

[JimmyJazz]

I am inclined to think that the reason why Mr. Moustache isn't praised in the website is because defending him nowadays makes it a little more harder to attract young liberals to party ranks.

I'm not a "Stalinist" in any sense of the word, but even I'm inclined to think that courting liberals is often the motivation for the obligatory Two Minutes of Hate against Stalin that some Trotskyist groups put somewhere near the end of every single article they publish to keep their Koba-hating credentials firm.

One of the leaders of PSL/ANSWER in L.A. told me right off the bat that, "we read Trotsky, but we aren't 'Trotskyists'. We think Stalin was a great revolutionary, but obviously we criticize his mistakes."

They aren't hiding anything.

[Lolshevik]

I'll only be addressing Gulag Orkestar's comment for now, since that's all I have time for atm.

We are not a Stalinist party. Setting aside the fact that 'Stalinist' is an empty pejorative to begin with, there are those in the PSL who believe that the Soviet Union's leadership decayed after Lenin's death, as well as those who believe it decayed after Stalin's death. We do not let this ruin our civility towards each other and it doesn't hinder our ability to act as a united party here in the year 2009. I apologize if our attempt to overcome sectarianism troubles you.

[Leo]

We are not a Stalinist party. Setting aside the fact that 'Stalinist' is an empty pejorative to begin withThis sentence as well as the rest of your post completely confirms everything I said, from your party actually being Stalinists to it's embarrassment of it, and it not really emphasizing it due to wanting to recruit young liberals.

Stalinism-denial, or shy-Stalinism is one of the dominant tendencies among modern Stalinist organizations. "No! There is no Stalinism, there is no Stalinism, it didn't happen!" :lol:

[Lolshevik]

This sentence as well as the rest of your post completely confirms everything I said, from your party actually being Stalinists to it's embarrassment of it, and it not really emphasizing it due to wanting to recruit young liberals.

Stalinism-denial, or shy-Stalinism is one of the dominant tendencies among modern Stalinist organizations. "No! There is no Stalinism, there is no Stalinism, it didn't happen!" :lol:

Okay, I'll bite. How is the PSL a Stalinist party? Or does the mere fact that we say "Hmm, you know what, maybe he wasn't quite the baby-eating, virgin-sacrificing cartoon villain the bourgeois media makes him out to be, we should look into this to see what the truth is" make us Stalinist?

[BobKKKindle$]

Okay, I'll bite. How is the PSL a Stalinist party?Let's first be clear on what Stalinism is. "Stalinism" doesn't refer exclusively to Stalin as an individual or even the USSR during the period 1927-1953, and so someone could be a Stalinist even if they know nothing of those subjects or reject Stalin as a historical leader. It is a general term that is used to refer to a society in which the means of production are subject to state ownership but are controlled by a class of bureaucrats, who function as a bourgeoisie as a result of their position within the state apparatus. The societies in which these features have existed did not exhibit workers control, and also involved the production of commodities, as well as wage-labour, such that they can be considered examples of state-capitalism - not socialism. A Stalinist is not only someone who admires these societies and views them as socialist (in fact, this feature is not even necessary - but it is a central part of the politics of many whom we could consider Stalinists) but is also someone who, in their role as an activist, seeks to use bureaucratic methods in the way they deal with other political organizations, and the working class. Under this definition, the PSL is a Stalinist organization, because it supports the massacre of workers and students in other countries, as we can see from your position on the Tiananmen Massacre in 1989, when the regimes carrying out these massacres use the language of socialism to obscure the way they operate and the class interests they represent. This means that you cannot be considered internationalists because you refuse to support the struggles of workers throughout the world and applaud the efforts of state-capitalist regimes to suppress working-class struggle. In addition, your admiration for the so-called "Korean Revolution" and other political changes which did not involve the working class coming to power demonstrates that the PSL does not have any understanding of the need for the working class to be the agent of its own emancipation, i.e. the meaning of socialism from below. Instead, you believe that socialism can be created through the imposition of political and economic structures from above, by an occupying military power, or through the intrigues of elites who are isolated from the working class - i.e. how Communist Parties came to power in Eastern Europe after WW2.

[Leo]

Okay, I'll bite. How is the PSL a Stalinist party?

Uh... I just explained it like two posts ago.

[manic expression]

In the period leading up to the revolution, the Bolsheviks were tolerant -- even accepting -- of criticism, and didn't resort to personalism and cursing when they were put in a corner theoretically. That's how the neo-Stalinite PSL will act differently.

In the period leading up to the revolution, the Bolsheviks were quite adamant in defending the very policies and positions you're decrying as reformist on this thread. Running in bourgeois elections was a major part of the Bolsheviks' activities, but perhaps you forgot this.


For example, instead of saying "Stop the War", which orients the demand to the capitalists and their state, we would say "Organize to Stop the War" and/or "Organize and Strike to Stop the War",

This is beyond semantic, and it's quite irrelevant. The PSL and ANSWER are "organizing to stop the war" and "organizing and [building the necessary working-class organs with which to] strike and stop the war". A slogan should be succinct and to the point, and that's what "Stop the War" is. In much the same way, the call for a moratorium on

When Kassad said you were nit-picking, I had no idea it was that bad.


Besides from the support given to various Stalinist regimes, the more public support given to the Castroist regime and the glorification of Stalinists such as Che Guevara and Ho Chi Minh which can be seen in the website too sort of hints the direction as well as the tradition.

This is your way of defining the PSL as a "Stalinist" organization? Quite circular logic: the PSL is Stalinist because it supports Stalinists who are Stalinists because they support Stalinists. This says nothing, because as has been pointed out, your use of "Stalinist" is essentially pejorative and politically empty. Had you concretely connected support for, say, the Cuban Revolution with "Stalinism", maybe you'd have a point.

[Leo]

As I said Stalinism is a political term which does not mean praising Stalin the individual. Marxists have considered the Khrushchev era USSR to be Stalinist as well as Mao's China for example. Stalinism means the ideological germs of the counter-revolution in all it's nationalism, it's declaration of the possibility of socialism in one country and call for support of socialist motherlands that is the Stalinist regimes.

Your party considers not only the Stalinist regime in Cuba but the ones in Russia, China, Korea, Vietnam, the Eastern Europe among others to be socialist, that they have managed to build true socialism. Thus your party sees socialism in one country to be something that can be built. Your party also supports these "socialist motherlands" and their actions against the working classes in those countries as well as most of their means and methods. Although your party does not openly demonstrate it's affection for Stalin, there seems to be a cult of personality around other Stalinist leaders, such as Ho Chi Minh and Che Guevara.

Basically you saying your party is not Stalinist is not even funny.

As for the Cuban "revolution", it was a nationalist coup d'etat which took Cuba from the American imperialist camp and put it into the Russian imperialist camp. The ideology of the new Cuban regime was constructed on more or less the same basic lines of the Russian Stalinist camp, and of course the regime itself was completely subjected to Russian imperialism. Obviously it was proclaimed that Cuba would start building "socialism in one country". There were many repressive measures against militant workers, groups like the anarchists and trotskyists were heavily repressed. Especially after the death of Guevara a strong cult of personality was built around him. Nationalism was always an important aspect of the ideology of Castro's regime, as evidenced by slogans such as "Long live the nation!" and "Fatherland or death!".

I'd say it was a pretty Stalinist event.

Besides, it's not as if Castro or Guevara themselves were against Stalin himself. While Castro himself is shyer nowadays and wants to maintain a "critical" support of Stalin, heres what he still says:


(Talking about Stalin's merits) He established unity in the Soviet Union. He consolidated what Lenin had begun: party unity. He gave the international revolutionary movement a new impetus. The USSR's industrialization was one of Stalin's wisest actions, and I believe it was a determining factor in the USSR's capacity to resist.

One of Stalin's - and the team that supported him - greatest merits was the plan to transfer the war industry and main strategic industries to Siberia and deep into Soviet territory.


I believe Stalin led the USSR well during the war. According to many generals, Zhukov and the most brilliant Soviet generals, Stalin played an important role in defending the USSR and in the war against Nazism. They all recognized it.


Even when criticizing he makes it sure that everyone knows his is the most loyal "criticism":


Stalin made a series of mistakes that were criticized by a large part of the world, and which placed Communists - who were great friends of the USSR - in a very difficult position by having to support each one of those episodes.

It is obvious that Castro identifies both himself and his "Communism" with supporters of Stalin himself. Guevara's affection for Stalin is more well known:


Once more I was able to convince myself how criminal the capitalistic octopuses are. On a picture of our old and bewailed comrade Stalin, I swore not to rest before these capitalistic octopuses are destroyed.

[Martin Blank]

In the period leading up to the revolution, the Bolsheviks were quite adamant in defending the very policies and positions you're decrying as reformist on this thread. Running in bourgeois elections was a major part of the Bolsheviks' activities, but perhaps you forgot this.

Running in a bourgeois election is not reformist. Running in a bourgeois election on a reformist platform is reformist. That's what I've been saying from the beginning, but perhaps you were too busy feeding your blind fury.

And if you want to get into a discussion about the strategy and tactics of the Bolsheviks in the run-up to the October Revolution, bring it on.


This is beyond semantic, and it's quite irrelevant. The PSL and ANSWER are "organizing to stop the war" and "organizing and [building the necessary working-class organs with which to] strike and stop the war". A slogan should be succinct and to the point, and that's what "Stop the War" is. In much the same way, the call for a moratorium on

When Kassad said you were nit-picking, I had no idea it was that bad.

This isn't nit-picking. This is the question of form and content. The forms may seem similar, but the content is fundamentally different. ANSWER's slogans are not oriented to working people or even necessarily to those whom you seek to organize. "Stop the War!", "Jobs, Not Bombs!" and "Moratorium Now!" are all addressed to the capitalist class and their state. That's where the difference in content comes in.

It's unfortunate that you cannot see the difference. I can only attribute that to your own continued acceptance of bourgeois ideology (impressionism, pragmatism and idealism).

[manic expression]

As I said Stalinism is a political term which does not mean praising Stalin the individual. Marxists have considered the Khrushchev era USSR to be Stalinist as well as Mao's China for example. Stalinism means the ideological germs of the counter-revolution in all it's nationalism, it's declaration of the possibility of socialism in one country and call for support of socialist motherlands that is the Stalinist regimes.

Then Lenin would be a Stalinist, in your eyes. The sentence "Marxists have considered the Khrushchev era USSR..." is a good example of how flimsy your position is. What, exactly, ARE the so-called "ideological germs of the counter-revolution in all it's nationalism"? Unless you provide us with some specific criticisms, you're simply rambling and proving what I've been saying.


Thus your party sees socialism in one country to be something that can be built.

Of course you wouldn't understand what you're talking about. Defending socialist revolutions, countries which have seen the creation of the dictatorship of the proletariat, is what every Marxist does.


Basically you saying your party is not Stalinist is not even funny.

No, it's not very funny. I can't say the same for your analysis, however.

[manic expression]

Running in a bourgeois election is not reformist. Running in a bourgeois election on a reformist platform is reformist. That's what I've been saying from the beginning, but perhaps you were too busy feeding your blind fury.

That is just the thing. You point out supposedly "reformist slogans" as evidence of a supposedly "reformist platform", when in reality they are nothing of the sort. Appealling to the working class to "Stop the War" is, in your eyes, apparently reformist. In much the same way, appealling to the workers through an electoral campaign to challenge and organize against capitalism (which the Villar campaign is doing), is viewed as reformist. It makes no real sense unless you buy into your semantics, which I'll deal with shortly.


This isn't nit-picking. This is the question of form and content. The forms may seem similar, but the content is fundamentally different. ANSWER's slogans are not oriented to working people or even necessarily to those whom you seek to organize. "Stop the War!", "Jobs, Not Bombs!" and "Moratorium Now!" are all addressed to the capitalist class and their state. That's where the difference in content comes in.

No, it's a manufactured issue that has no bearing to the struggle for revolution. ANSWER's slogans are oriented to working people, not only because they further the cause of the workers through opposition to imperialism, but because ANSWER goes where the workers are in order to organize and agitate. The slogans are not addressed to the capitalist class at all: we understand that imperialist slaughter is in the interests of the bourgeoisie, and so we seek to put an end to both slaughter and imperialism. Oppossing imperialism on all fronts, as ANSWER and the PSL does, is certainly not addressing anything but working-class militancy to the capitalists. But what would you know about that?

And in the end, again, your argument boils down to a whole lot of nit-picking and little more.

[Leo]

Then Lenin would be a Stalinist, in your eyes.

Lenin was not a nationalist or a chauvinist but an internationalist. Lenin did not think socialism in one country was possible and knew that if the Russian revolution did not spread it was doomed so he was instead for world revolution. Lenin called for the workers' councils, the soviets to take all power - not political parties. Lenin was against any sort of cult of personality. So no Lenin was not a Stalinist, although he did make a few key mistakes, like supporting the suppression of the Kronstadt uprising, the banning of the factions in the party, the one-man management and the militarization of labor which did aid the Stalinist counter-revolution.


What, exactly, ARE the so-called "ideological germs of the counter-revolution in all it's nationalism"?

I have already written them, more then twice, and Bobkindles also made an explanation. Since you didn't manage reading them: 1) nationalism/patriotism/chauvinism 2) promoting "socialism" in one country 3) supporting/defending the "socialist" motherlands politically, in wars and in their treatment to workers living in so-called "socialist" countries 4) the bureaucratic and suppressive methods are the main ones. Things like frontism, parliamentarianism, trade-unionism, careerism, support for the appropriate nationalist factions etc. can also be added.

[pastradamus]

Does he actually have a chance of getting in or is it a real long shot?

[Lolshevik]

If I understand correctly, there are those on this thread who believe the PSL is a Stalinist party because we "glorify" the "Stalinists" Ho Chi Minh, Che Guevara, etc. I'd just like to say that there is a real difference between supporting national liberation struggles against imperialism and deifying those struggles' leaders. Appreciating the contributions of revolutionary leaders =/= deification.

[Bright Banana Beard]

It is obvious that Castro identifies both himself and his "Communism" with supporters of Stalin himself. Guevara's affection for Stalin is more well known:

I am sure that this is Fidel's opinion and not on us. Just because a guy said it doesn't make us the same. First you said it not affection for a leader, but now you reverse it to one guy and use it on us, I am sure you could do better beside the quotation of one guy.

[Martin Blank]

And in the end, again, your argument boils down to a whole lot of nit-picking and little more.

OK, if you believe that to be the case, show us where you explain how "Stop the War" is not addressed to the capitalist state. Show us where you explain how "Jobs, Not Bombs" is not addressed to the capitalist state. Show us where you explain how "Moratorium Now" is not addressed to the capitalist state. Show us where you explain in no uncertain terms how workers are supposed to "Stop the War", achieve "Jobs, Not Bombs" and implement a "Moratorium Now". Put simply: What is your concrete plan?

Vague statements about "socialism" and "struggle" don't count.

Once you've posted these statements, we can take the discussion from there.

[manic expression]

Lenin was not a nationalist or a chauvinist but an internationalist. Lenin did not think socialism in one country was possible and knew that if the Russian revolution did not spread it was doomed so he was instead for world revolution.

This is based on a strawman, which is in turn based on historical myths. Leaving aside the fact that Lenin, like Stalin, like Trotsky (like Bukharin, like Zinoviev, etc., etc....), favored building socialism in the Soviet Union after it was apparent that the German Revolution had failed, Stalin was not against world revolution. You don't have to agree with Stalin to recognize that it was Stalin who proposed invading Poland in order to spread the revolution, or that it was Stalin who lent aid to the revolutionary Spanish Republicans. You may not agree with what the man did (and believe me, I don't in some instances, either), but trying to make believe he was against world revolution is just nonsense.


Lenin called for the workers' councils, the soviets to take all power - not political parties.

The whole point of Leninism is that the vanguard party of the working class should and must take power. This, again, lumps all of Leninism into "Stalinism".


I have already written them, more then twice, and Bobkindles also made an explanation. Since you didn't manage reading them: 1) nationalism/patriotism/chauvinism 2) promoting "socialism" in one country 3) supporting/defending the "socialist" motherlands politically, in wars and in their treatment to workers living in so-called "socialist" countries 4) the bureaucratic and suppressive methods are the main ones. Things like frontism, parliamentarianism, trade-unionism, careerism, support for the appropriate nationalist factions etc. can also be added.

People have, without much luck, been asking you for an explanation of YOUR points, don't drag others into this. Let's examine this:

1.) Nationalism is truly a desperate claim. Marx clearly stated that class struggle takes on a national character, and that the proletariat must constitute itself the nation. What, did Stalin perpetrate Georgian chauvinism upon the Russian workers? When did this occur?

2.) The theory of "Socialism in One Country" does not posit that world revolution is undesirable or impossible. To the contrary, it submits that defending a revolution in one country is possible, and moreover it holds that the defense of such a revolution can help promote socialism throughout the rest of the world. History has shown this to be true.

3.) Yes, and it is only fitting for communists to support socialist states. All Marxists do this.

4.) This is really your only valid point, but in actuality, bureaucratic mechanisms do not form an ideology. More importantly, however, Cuba does not have the bureaucratic or "suppressive" methods employed by the Soviet Union, and so you're contradicting your entire position. Even more importantly, the materialist analysis of the Soviet Union shows us that such bureaucracy was a result of the economic and social conditions of that specific country and not some phantom ideology.

The rest of your "definition" is nothing but pejoratives, which makes sense I suppose.


OK, if you believe that to be the case, show us where you explain how "Stop the War" is not addressed to the capitalist state. Show us where you explain how "Jobs, Not Bombs" is not addressed to the capitalist state. Show us where you explain how "Moratorium Now" is not addressed to the capitalist state. Show us where you explain in no uncertain terms how workers are supposed to "Stop the War", achieve "Jobs, Not Bombs" and implement a "Moratorium Now". Put simply: What is your concrete plan?

Vague statements about "socialism" and "struggle" don't count.

Once you've posted these statements, we can take the discussion from there.

Unfortunately, I can't post "Who We Are, What We Stand For", the PSL's comprehensive political statement, because that would put all of your suspicions to rest for good. It addresses the who, how and why of socialist revolution. In addition, it's the first thing PSL organizers distribute to interested people, so it's very accessible and it gets in the right hands. If you're so inclined, you can order it from the PSL website.

What is clear is that the PSL's anti-war work is very much addressed to the workers. Here's one tidbit from the reportback on the recent mobilizations throughout the country:

“I’m a student who can barely afford to stay in school, and I’m so mad about the war and tuition hikes. This was the most powerful action I have ever been a part of. It makes me want to do more—everything I can, to stop this system,” said Yasmin Abdullah, a Lebanese American student at Los Angeles Valley College.

Here's another:

Shakeel Syed of the Islamic Shura Council denounced the U.S. government’s continued attacks on the Muslim community. He called for an end to U.S. wars, the occupation of Palestine, and for a revolution in the United States.

(Thanks to these awesome public library computers, I can't post the link of the article, but you can find it at PSLWeb.org, it's titled "Thousands March Nationwide: End the Wars!")

These aren't even party statements (which you seem determined to view as "vague"), these are the words of working-class people who, through the mobilizations of ANSWER and the PSL and their allies, are articulating and pursuing revolutionary politics today. That, really, speaks for itself.

The message that the PSL sends to the capitalist state is simple: we will oppose you at the ballot box and in the streets. That is what the Villar campaign and ANSWER's anti-war work represent, respectively.

If you want to look at the party's view of revolution, simply click on "Marxism 101" at PSLWeb.org, which gives a pretty good overview of revolutionary politics. Here's a quick snippet from "What is a revolution?":

Marxists use the term “social revolution” in a very precise way. Whereas reforms are changes within an existing social and economic system, social revolutions make a sharp break from one social system to another. A socialist revolution would end the private ownership of the factories, mines, transportation and offices by a tiny clique of capitalists.

It goes from there. Clearly, any idea that the PSL is vague about its dedication to liberation through socialism is quite mistaken.

[Martin Blank]

Clearly, any idea that the PSL is vague about its dedication to liberation through socialism is quite mistaken.

Your assertions may be clear in your own minds, and I can appreciate that your organization, like many others (including my own), is able to get others to share those assertions. But there was absolutely nothing in your reply, apart from one comment of yours ("we will oppose you at the ballot box and in the streets") that implies any kind of specific strategy or plan to actually achieve your goals. In fact, even that statement doesn't cut it; it's not what you're against, but what you're for that really matters.

I'm not questioning your personal dedication in all this, except in the sense that I would think that someone who was serious about achieving "liberation through socialism" would actually have a plan that goes beyond "we will oppose you at the ballot box and in the streets". But you don't -- at least, not one accessible to the general public, anyway.

Look, maybe I'm not the person who should be arguing with you about this. I mean, don't get me wrong: someone should be arguing with you about your lack of strategy and lapses into reformism, but maybe it shouldn't be me. I've been too deep in this kind of work for too long.

I know that the work ANSWER does impresses you, and it's a lot of the reason why you've moved on to joining the PSL. But I've been an active communist doing organizing for over 20 years, and I've done things in my political work that you've only dreamed of doing. (If you ever want the laundry list, PM me and I'll send it to you.) The point that I'm trying to get across to you is this: ANSWER doesn't impress me -- never has, never will.

But I do understand and appreciate your enthusiasm. Again, don't get me wrong. When I was relatively new to it all, I was the same way you all are. But I realized that when organizations fail, and when movements collapse, it's often due to more than material conditions. There are political lessons to learn as well. When you've seen organizations throughout history use the same methods over and over again, expecting that they will be the ones to not fail, but inevitably failing, you eventually have to ask yourself whether it's the organizations at fault ... or the method.

The protest movement method doesn't work -- not for what you want it to do, anyway. All your dedication and commitment and hard work and sacrifice will be for nothing if you continue to use this failed and discredited method. You'll get your big demonstrations and protests, but only for a while (we're already seeing that with ANSWER). And you may get a handful more of committed, dedicated, hard-working and self-sacrificing members into the PSL. But that's all you'll have (for a while, until they decide to leave). I don't know if that's enough for you, but it would not be enough for me. Been there, done that, have the t-shirts and signs to show for it.

Let me make this as clear and concise as humanly possible: If you do not have a method that is about more than building protest movements, if you do not have a clear strategy for moving beyond political protest to political power, YOU WILL FAIL.

And, yes, I'd hate to see that happen again -- mostly because I'd hate to see what it does to you. (And don't tell me you'll be fine; I've heard that too many times to know it's not true.)

P.S.: If the PSL does actually have such a strategy, I have to wonder why it's not freely available for people to read and review. I would think that such a statement would be something you'd want everyone to know and read.

[Lolshevik]

Miles,

Surely you do not believe that the ANSWER Coalition is a straight-up cut and dry antiwar effort? ANSWER is not a single-issue campaign, ANSWER is a coalition of revolutionary and progressive forces founded to combat imperialism. This is a lot different than being merely against this or that war; an anti-imperialist orientation gives us a strong principled foundation that also comes with the very pleasant side effect of elevating the class consciousness of workers involved with the organization.

I think what you're getting at is that the PSL is doomed to repeat the past mistakes of the communist movement. I assure you, the PSL examines quite closely the history of the movement and the setbacks and mistakes it has made along the way - both in our publications and in internal discussion amongst members. We know good and well that protest groups alone are not enough. We also know that merely fielding candidates for office is not enough. We don't do these things in isolation; every public activity the PSL participates in has at its ultimate aim our mission as a party: "formation of the proletariat into a class, overthrow of bourgeois supremacy, and conquest of political power by the proletariat."

[Martin Blank]

Surely you do not believe that the ANSWER Coalition is a straight-up cut and dry antiwar effort? ANSWER is not a single-issue campaign, ANSWER is a coalition of revolutionary and progressive forces founded to combat imperialism. This is a lot different than being merely against this or that war; an anti-imperialist orientation gives us a strong principled foundation that also comes with the very pleasant side effect of elevating the class consciousness of workers involved with the organization.

What you call it is not important. What you do with it is what matters. You and the other PSL people keep confusing form and content -- what you think your organization is with what your organization does; what you assert your strategy is with what your on-the-ground activity consists of.


I think what you're getting at is that the PSL is doomed to repeat the past mistakes of the communist movement. I assure you, the PSL examines quite closely the history of the movement and the setbacks and mistakes it has made along the way - both in our publications and in internal discussion amongst members. We know good and well that protest groups alone are not enough. We also know that merely fielding candidates for office is not enough. We don't do these things in isolation; every public activity the PSL participates in has at its ultimate aim our mission as a party: "formation of the proletariat into a class, overthrow of bourgeois supremacy, and conquest of political power by the proletariat."

This is boilerplate. Every organization makes these assertions about their particular work. Workers World says this of the All-People's Congress and the International Action Center. The RCP says this about Refuse & Resist and World Can't Wait. Socialist Action, the WIL and others say this about the "Antiwar Assembly" coalition. The SWP said this about the National Peace Action Coalition during the Vietnam War. The CPUSA continues to say this about their work in the Democratic Party. It's a throwaway statement.

Every one of these organizations has used and uses the same method the PSL is using now, and I'm not seeing any indication that they have "examined" anything. You can point to tactical differences, but the method remains the same.

[manic expression]

Your assertions may be clear in your own minds, and I can appreciate that your organization, like many others (including my own), is able to get others to share those assertions. But there was absolutely nothing in your reply, apart from one comment of yours ("we will oppose you at the ballot box and in the streets") that implies any kind of specific strategy or plan to actually achieve your goals. In fact, even that statement doesn't cut it; it's not what you're against, but what you're for that really matters.

Miles, as I said before, I unfortunately can't post any links right now, but you should definitely check out "Marxism 101" at PSLWeb.org, and get your hands on "Who We Are, What We Stand For" (you can order it at the website). I think those two statements will put the vast majority of your questions to rest.


I'm not questioning your personal dedication in all this, except in the sense that I would think that someone who was serious about achieving "liberation through socialism" would actually have a plan that goes beyond "we will oppose you at the ballot box and in the streets". But you don't -- at least, not one accessible to the general public, anyway.

Opposing imperialism and promoting revolutionary candidates, and at all times going to where the workers are, isn't a plan? Leaving aside the fact that the PSL does put forth detailed explanations of its policies and outlook (how a revolution is made, what historical examples we uphold, etc.), we cannot know the material conditions 10 or even 5 years down the road; every communist party must, to some degree, react to the ever-changing conditions of capitalist society, no?


Look, maybe I'm not the person who should be arguing with you about this. I mean, don't get me wrong: someone should be arguing with you about your lack of strategy and lapses into reformism, but maybe it shouldn't be me. I've been too deep in this kind of work for too long.

I know that the work ANSWER does impresses you, and it's a lot of the reason why you've moved on to joining the PSL. But I've been an active communist doing organizing for over 20 years, and I've done things in my political work that you've only dreamed of doing. (If you ever want the laundry list, PM me and I'll send it to you.) The point that I'm trying to get across to you is this: ANSWER doesn't impress me -- never has, never will.

But I do understand and appreciate your enthusiasm. Again, don't get me wrong. When I was relatively new to it all, I was the same way you all are. But I realized that when organizations fail, and when movements collapse, it's often due to more than material conditions. There are political lessons to learn as well. When you've seen organizations throughout history use the same methods over and over again, expecting that they will be the ones to not fail, but inevitably failing, you eventually have to ask yourself whether it's the organizations at fault ... or the method.

The protest movement method doesn't work -- not for what you want it to do, anyway. All your dedication and commitment and hard work and sacrifice will be for nothing if you continue to use this failed and discredited method. You'll get your big demonstrations and protests, but only for a while (we're already seeing that with ANSWER). And you may get a handful more of committed, dedicated, hard-working and self-sacrificing members into the PSL. But that's all you'll have (for a while, until they decide to leave). I don't know if that's enough for you, but it would not be enough for me. Been there, done that, have the t-shirts and signs to show for it.

I appreciate your concern and the lessons you've learned over the years, they're well taken. With that in mind, let me just say a few things on the issues you brought up (not because I don't value your input, but because I do): the PSL isn't putting everything into ANSWER, not by a long shot, and that's important to remember. The Villar campaign is one example of this, as is the string of conferences on socialism which were quite successive late last year and just a few weeks ago. From what I know about the NYC branch, they're involved in plenty of activity that doesn't revolve around anti-war protesting; in fact, I'd say the majority of what they do falls under that category.

Also, if I'm being honest, I think the PSL's greatest strength is its mix of energy and experience. We have a lot of young comrades who are just getting involved with the struggle (like me), but we also have a fair share of veterans who have seen and done a lot over the decades. The latter have seen entire parties rise and fall in front of their eyes, and their wealth of experience is really humbling.

I wasn't able to make it to the recent ANSWER protests (which I heard were great, despite some problems), but you know the action that impressed me the most about the PSL? Newspaper sales on trains. Wasn't glamorous, wasn't "massive", but the act of patiently and consistently agitating revolutionary politics among workers (and efficiently at that) was what really convinced me that the PSL is in this for real.

But again, I hear what you're saying.


P.S.: If the PSL does actually have such a strategy, I have to wonder why it's not freely available for people to read and review. I would think that such a statement would be something you'd want everyone to know and read.

Well, their comprehensive statement "Who We Are, What We Stand For" was the first thing I was given by a PSL activist, so it's not like it's inaccessible. Plus, the people who would want to review such a statement in detail are probably the same people who wouldn't mind paying a few bucks for it.

[Sverdlov]

Greetings from the NYC branch of the PSL. Thanks to those who've wished us well in our campaign.

We are not electorally oriented and, in fact, only field candidates as one tactic among many for raising class-consciousness and building a movement that challenges the capitalist ruling class. The NYC mayoral race has that potential, first and foremost in light of the struggles of working class New Yorkers- struggles that we're engaged in- and also given Bloomberg's position within the ruling class. We do not emulate bourgeois democracy or bourgeoise campaigns. We are consciously oriented to the working class, to using the electoral arena as a point of combat in a field of class struggle which elections could never contain. (Contrary to some quotes that have been projected, this is a thoroughly Leninist orientation.)

There are many theoretical and practical questions that will certainly be resolved through the class struggle (if they haven't been already.)

I must say that Jack's signature exposes him as less than revolutionary, prompting me also to note that Frances Villar is an example of the bold, fighting leadership women provide to the PSL.