questionable parties...

[Lord Marshall Draq]

a list of parties in existence that need to be investigated further. I would like people to take time, investigate and give their opinion, that we may all have a greater understanding.

coffee party-coffeeparty.usa
anonymus comment: "I think it would be a vessel through which Marxists can gain greater political influence.
Most of the people involved are progressives. Despite the fact that it is marketed as a centrist movement."

[Red Commissar]

I am not quite sure what you mean here. We have a thread for the list of our parties, do you mean the political placements of social movements?

[Lord Marshall Draq]

Parties people may have heard about, but are unsure of their motives and standpoint. Politricks love to play word games. It might sound good but is it? a friend asked me about whether this site was worth looking into or just more imperial crap. I know there are more out there and I want people to know which are left and which are wrong. I would like people to help me wade through the bullshit.

[Invincible Summer]

Well, the Communist Party USA supports the Democratic Party, so that should indicate to what extent they are revolutionary communists :lol:.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I signed up for the Coffee party website for the exact reason to try and see where they are at and what they are about. I think the people getting involved are honestly sincere, but from their discussion board, they are all over the map.

One poster said: "Great, about time something like this was organized - let's take down the bigots!" (and I thought Yay!)

Then someone else replied: "We shouldn't name-call, anger won't get us anywhere" (and I thought, "boo, more loosing liberal politics")

There are some people arguing hard against the Democrats and for independence from the 2 parties (though I haven't seen a real principled argument for this). Then there are also people arguing really weak conciliatory shit about bi-partisanship. Some people were arguing for grassroots activism, others were just saying they should only counter-protest the tea-parties (which implies then supporting the Democrats and Obama).

Their mission statement seems sincere, just liberal and weak: they say they want to "make government work for us". But they have also committed to be open to all ideologies which is a weakness in one sense but also is an opening for us since this point of unity would mean that they couldn't red-bait us.

On the bright side there were people posting who seemed like honest democratic-socislists and were open about it (on person's screen-name was Marxist). So I think comrades, if they run into friendly coffee-party activists in their area who are actually involved in activism, we should approach them on a case-by case basis. I bet some branches would be open to us and could learn a lot from those of us who have organizing and political experience.

At this point the group seems like it could either become MoveOn part 2 and basically a liberal mailing list... or it could engage a whole new layer of workers and students who sincerely want to see a move left-wards and are grappling over how to achieve this. The second option could lead to a radicalization and a bunch of people open to radical ideas and organizing.

The country is highly polarized right now and not just the far-right are incredibly angry; people who wanted universal healthcare, an end to the war, relief for workers during the recession, and other things we would agree with are just as angry. Therefore I don't think we should discount grassroots activists who may be starting off with some mixed and liberal ideas right now. the right is organized and has been since the late 70s while our people have been de-mobilized by the liberal establishment and demoralized by the Democrats. I suspect if some progressive organizing or whatnot begins to win, it will really open some floodgates of left-populism and that will be a good situation for us to operate in and make our arguments.