Socialists for Obama in 2012?

[OriginalGumby]

http://socialistworker.org/2009/07/30/socialists-for-obama

Yea this is screwed up

[Q]

Gumby, I have asked you on numerous occasions to stop simply spamming links to your own organisation. Yet you continue to do so. In fact, you barely do anything else. You provide nothing to the discussion on the forum, do not engage with users. I'm giving you a verbal warning now for this annoying behaviour (well, de facto you have been given many verbal warnings now).

Stop it already.

[Kassad]

Well, seeing that your organization is quite fond of endorsing capitalist candidates, I don't see why they'd have much of a problem endorsing another.

[KC]

Well, seeing that your organization is quite fond of endorsing capitalist candidates, I don't see why they'd have much of a problem endorsing another.

Who?

[gorillafuck]

Well, seeing that your organization is quite fond of endorsing capitalist candidates, I don't see why they'd have much of a problem endorsing another.
It sounded like the ISO was actually criticizing them for endorsing him.

[Sarah Palin]

Maybe his master plan is to get reelected and then implement the most leftist policies imaginable, because there would be no consequences for the next election. Maybe. But probably not.

I'll spend many days thinking about his leftist utopia circa 2015. Then I'll read the paper and see the casualties in Afghanistan, bombings in Pakistan, and more bailouts of wall-street.

[Revy]

Well, seeing that your organization is quite fond of endorsing capitalist candidates, I don't see why they'd have much of a problem endorsing another.

They didn't endorse anyone in 2008, as I recall.

[Manzil]

Maybe his master plan is to get reelected and then implement the most leftist policies imaginable, because there would be no consequences for the next election. Maybe. But probably not.

The outright rejection of a 'public option' for health reform shows Obama could be Lenin himself and the wider government apparatus would keep him safely contained... Perhaps, with the Democratic Party in complete control of the federal government, the disappointments and anti-working class measures which will inevitably come from this 'liberal' president over the next four years will have convinced the American left, come 2012, that Democrats not an option, regardless of their Republican opponents. Maybe. But probably not. :(

[Kassad]

Who?

International Socialist Organization endorsed Ralph Nader in 2000 and 2004.

[OriginalGumby]

The reason I posted this was because I was taken aback at the two problems with the event described in the article. This event took place and only one group on the panel, Solidarity, talked honestly about the democrats as the graveyard of social movements. Everyone else said that Obama needs to be re-elected and one guy even mocks the idea of some third party. The second part is that the ISO was refused a speaker despite being a substantial force in the socialist movement in the US and also having the right position on this question of the Dems.

Kassad is criticizing our endorsement of the Nader campaign in 2000 and 2004. I hope that he would know enough about us to know that we would never support the democrats. Obviously he didn't read the article though. I think the position on supporting the dems or not is a much more important one than supporting Nader 5 and 9 years ago. We have never elevated supporting Nader to the level of principal and many people who were involved with us then and now have different ideas about it. The idea at the time was that the challenge to the two party system that was going on would actually be much larger and that the Nader campaign would not demobilize people afterwards. Personally I don't think it was a big deal. No one in the ISO spent that time convincing people to support Nader as the fight for socialism or to not be activists after the campaign. It was an experiment with mixed results.

Q I think that this thread actually has produced a discussion and I have contributed to several discussions recently that were engaging people on the forum while also posting news analysis that I actually think people like and that should be a part of a political forum.
http://www.revleft.com/vb/retail-workers-lumpeni-t114124/index.html
http://www.revleft.com/vb/iso-response-psl-t113384/index.html?t=113384
http://www.revleft.com/vb/studying-state-and-t113607/index.html?t=113607

[Chow Foo]

Socialists support him because he is the 'lesser' evil of the two I guess... in order to bring real 'change', we need a revolution.