Why can't we be like the Tea Baggers?

[JAH23]

After all the media hype about the Tea Party protests, their selection of candidates for public office, and their 'grassroots' organizing, why can't the far left have the same impact that the Tea Party has? Is it the media? Do you think FOX and CNN would not take the time to cover a revolting leftist group? I just think that if these fascist tea baggers can take the time to organize and seek out public attention, we should too.

It is time for us to come together and create a United Leftist Front. We need loud opposition to the growing fascism in this country. I'm sick of people taking the rhetoric of Glenn Beck seriously. I feel there is no true leftist voice anymore. If we do not organize on a massive scale, then it is my belief that the Tea Party will continue to get public attention and gain more power in public offices.

We need public attention. We need to be on the six 'o clock news. We need to be talked and debated about. We need to get fucking noticed.

We need to be loud and we need to be militant.

[Tablo]

The reason they get attention is that the media gives it to them. No matter how large our marches are they will try to pretend like nothing is going on.

[RadioRaheem84]

Some of the largest rallies ever assembled in the world were against the US led Iraq War. I believe in some countries they even dwarfed the Vietnam protests. The international media payed attention to them because they were hard to ignore but politicians in the coalition of the willing ignored their pleas.

Now that we have a much smaller yet more vocal community of right wingers going on about "socialism", the media not only listens to them but keeps saying that these voices represent the people's will.

[Robocommie]

We of course need to keep agitating but we could also do better, in general, if we had something other than our bullshit corporate media.

[JAH23]

I believe that if we are large enough and loud enough, we shall revoke a response from the media.

[Agnapostate]

To some extent, the nature of the tea party movement has required mass production of inane platitudes (and belief in them), that it's more difficult for socialism to embody. It's easy for some standard hick to proudly announce that he's for the free market and against the president's Stalinism, but not so for the sophistication of socialist theory to be easily communicated, particularly because it's so heavily varying.

There is still leftist organization in the anti-war movement, but has been less covered by the mainstream media because of their unwillingness to admit that there might be significant leftist opposition to the current administration. That might change. There will be an action day on Saturday; we'll see where that takes us.

[JAH23]

Agnapostate: You couldn't be more right about the easy "appeal" of the Tea Party movement. Do you think we would have to dumb down our message so the masses could accept and appreciate it?

[punisa]

I don't even have to say it, you comrades all know it - large pro-socialist march should happen in the heart of capitalism, the US.
And it must be large enough so the media has no chance of downplaying or avoiding it completely.

Why in the US?
Because the world would be watching.
There are rather big (left) demonstrations going on all over the world, yet only a couple of us who follow daily international leftist politics are aware of those, in other words - media doesn't give a fuck.
But a rally in the US... now that would be some frontpage headliners all over, old Europe for sure.
Why not France, England or Germany? Good, but again not such a BIG news.

I've been reading a lot on the sparks of left organizing in the US. Comrades, you have indeed huge ranks.
All that it would take at this point is some sort of global left unity, in that way you could show that you exists, as of today that is not a situation.

My friend was surprised the other day when I told him that the majority of the users on RevLeft are actually from the US.

How to come up with a large unified left in the States? It's rather easy for me to spell it out, but unfortunately everyone here that is a member of some organization will curse me for it.

But in theory, the joint forces should be consisted of a "colorful" leftiest spectrum, communists, marxist-leninist, trotsykist and stalinists (yeah, imagine that one), Christian communists, pure Marxists, Fidelists, Guevaraists, anarchists... and throw in some of Bob Avakian's maoists in there.

mmm, smells like a good soup eh? :cool:
A complete utopia at the same time.

Then again, from a statistical point of view - if these groups would take some time to put each others differences aside, they would not just surpass teafreaks, but would also serve as an extraordinary example for a left worldwide.

...looks good. And then I wake up I guess? :lol:

[JAH23]

^ This.

[bcbm]

why would we want the attention of the media?

[JAH23]

why would we want the attention of the media?

So we could be heard all over the country, and world, instead of just being considered a marginal political group.

There is no such thing as bad publicity.

[RadioRaheem84]

But in theory, the joint forces should be consisted of a "colorful" leftiest spectrum, communists, marxist-leninist, trotsykist and stalinists (yeah, imagine that one), Christian communists, pure Marxists, Fidelists, Guevaraists, anarchists... and throw in some of Bob Avakian's maoists in there.

Progressive and liberal-leftists hog most of the left media in this country. We would have to include them too. They kind of see themselves as the only legitimate leftist force in the US.

[JAH23]

Progressive and liberal-leftists hog most of the left media in this country. We would have to include them too. They kind of see themselves as the only legitimate leftist force in the US.

We share some of the same beliefs as progressive liberals: gay rights, pro-choice (for the most part), sympathy for the oppressed. I suppose it would not be too hard to convert the majority of them to anti-capitalists.

[punisa]

Progressive and liberal-leftists hog most of the left media in this country. We would have to include them too. They kind of see themselves as the only legitimate leftist force in the US.

I wrote down a rather lengthy list, but no need to go "over the edge". I sincerely doubt media loving liberal-leftists would jump on this train, but if you can steal some of their members for your own - all the better. And I believe this an "extraordinary pool for new recruits", just as comrade Jah23 mentioned.

Consider the rather larger masses... for example, we all know that social-democracy (at least in Europe) is an ideology that is not and will never be compatible with any of ours, simply because it supports capitalism.
But still - their voting machine would eventually see some of their own desert over to your side.
There is not such a big gap between moderates and revolutionaries.

[Agnapostate]

How to come up with a large unified left in the States? It's rather easy for me to spell it out, but unfortunately everyone here that is a member of some organization will curse me for it.

But in theory, the joint forces should be consisted of a "colorful" leftiest spectrum, communists, marxist-leninist, trotsykist and stalinists (yeah, imagine that one), Christian communists, pure Marxists, Fidelists, Guevaraists, anarchists... and throw in some of Bob Avakian's maoists in there.

This post is an insightful one; it corresponds with the "intermediate phase" of a proposed developmental strategy of mine that I mentioned in another thread.


I've rejected violent revolution as improbable and unfeasible at this time in politically stable and developed first-world countries, due to the lack of experience of the general population with true political warfare as opposed to the consensus politics of the Democrats and Republicans, as well as the substantially improved labor conditions that reduce extreme and widespread hostility towards capitalists and coordinators, and the resultant apathy and weakness from such factors.

So I instead promote the big tent that diminishes into a small tent over time, a sphere of participation that gradually declines until the heart of the movement is dealing with the heart of the issues. In our current climate, for example, we'd have a broad and generic "left" coalition when it comes to advancing similarly broad and generic "progressive" goals (a cessation of immigration restrictions, a minimum wage increase, etc.), a smaller "anti-capitalist" coalition that includes self-described socialists of all stripes that could be in agreement when it came to the implementation of anti-capitalist aims while using republican tactics as a mechanism (such as the pursuit of nationalization efforts), and finally, an anarchist core that seeks explicitly anarchist goals when anarchism was expansive enough to function as an influential social movement. The intermediate sphere is what unites RevLeft.

Our roads will eventually part. But we're going in the same direction at the moment, so why not carpool instead of driving separately?


Progressive and liberal-leftists hog most of the left media in this country. We would have to include them too. They kind of see themselves as the only legitimate leftist force in the US.

In my opinion, to create a distinct movement of our own, it must be explicitly anti-capitalist. While progressives and liberal-leftists have a role in a portion of this process, our goal is not to be immersed into the coffee party movement (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee_Party), but to stand out as a populist coalition that recognizes that capitalism is the fundamental cause of economic crisis and reforms within the context of capitalism will only bring about temporary alleviation.


We share some of the same beliefs as progressive liberals: gay rights, pro-choice (for the most part), sympathy for the oppressed. I suppose it would not be too hard to convert the majority of them to anti-capitalists.

It would not be too hard to convert a number of social democrats and more leftist liberal democrats to anti-capitalism. I was once one of them. However, we must keep in mind that while our strategy might be intertwined at some phase of activism, our underlying philosophy is not and cannot be. We must remember that we are principled and devoted anti-capitalists even if we have points of agreement with liberal and social democrats, since liberal and social democracy ultimately sustain the means of production.


Agnapostate: You couldn't be more right about the easy "appeal" of the Tea Party movement. Do you think we would have to dumb down our message so the masses could accept and appreciate it?

I've chosen to respond to this comment last because I wanted to make my organizational strategy recommendations clear first. A movement parallel to the tea party movement must be explicitly anti-capitalist, in my opinion, and must rally around critical points that there is a consensus on. In the tea party movement, this is an abstract ideal of "liberty through free markets," and intense anti-establishment opposition to the current administration around the points of alleged statism (true) and anti-capitalism (false) on his part. In my opinion, the central faults of capitalism are its destruction of liberty, efficiency, and prosperity. The one that we find a consensus on, however, is prosperity, due to our common opposition to the exploitation and poverty that capitalism generates. We can then appeal to populist sentiments through concise and easily repeated talking points based on that, as the tea party does (while not abandoning more developed thought, however, as they have).

As an example, consider this anti-capitalist platform (http://revcom.us/a/151/system-en.html) of the Revolutionary Communist Party, a Maoist organization that is only sparsely represented on here (and disavowed by some fellow Maoists), entitled "We don’t need to 'Rescue' this Capitalist System - We need to GET RID OF THIS SYSTEM -We Need Revolution!"


http://revcom.us/i/151/BevHillsHomeless.jpg

A homeless woman in Beverly Hills reads on the park bench where she has been sleeping since 2000. Some 88,000 people in L.A. County live on the streets or in shelters amid the structures of superfluous wealth.


Millions of people in the U.S., the wealthiest country in the world, are homeless. People’s need for shelter and other facilities does not determine what actually gets built. Instead, if more profit can be extracted by building luxury condos than by constructing good basic housing for masses of people, then it is luxury condos that get built. This is because different blocs of capital must either expand or die, and their expansion depends on the highest possible profit. This basic law of capital determines what gets produced, how, and for whom.


Should we rescue this?



http://revcom.us/i/151/ChildLabor.jpg


Child laborers carrying stones at a stone crusher near Gauhati, India, June 2008.

One in six children on this planet are child laborers. Many of these children are owned outright as slaves. Despite laws against child labor, capitalists are driven to maximize profit and to gain competitive advantage over other capitalists by exploiting, and robbing the youth from approximately 250 million children around the world.

Should we rescue this?



http://revcom.us/i/151/MexCorn.jpg

Globalized agriculture has deeply affected production of basic crops of corn and beans in Mexico. Corn is now being grown for ethanol fuel.


Under global capitalism, third world countries have been incorporated into the global capitalist economy. Farmers produce food for export based on what’s most profitable. Crops like corn, sugar, and wheat are now often produced for biofuels in advanced capitalist countries instead of for feeding people. Yet over a billion people on this planet suffer from hunger. In Haiti, food prices have risen by over 40 percent. People eat mudcakes, and dig through garbage dumps looking for food to survive, while mangoes and coffee are mass produced for export.


Should we rescue this?

http://revcom.us/i/151/HondurasGarbage.jpg

In Honduras, over one-third of the population live on one dollar per day. Two men look for scraps to eat at a garbage dump.

http://revcom.us/i/151/LAambulance.jpg

Patient taken from an ambulance and left on Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles, October 2006. More than a dozen hospitals have been accused of dumping patients on Skid Row.

In every sphere of society—from health care to education to culture to the environment and beyond—the capitalist system acts as a fetter on humanity. Capital twists and bends these arenas of human concern and endeavor to the rule of profit over all, to the requirement that capital continually expand itself…or die. As a result people suffer terribly and their lives are stunted in every dimension-—that is, when they are not outright blown away in some brutal war for empire, or snuffed out by some murdering enforcer for this capitalist system.

Should we rescue this?


NO! WE SHOULD GET RID OF IT!

There is tremendous productive power in the technology, resources and knowledge of the people of this planet. The basis exists to provide a decent life for all right now, and to lay the basis for a common abundance in the future for all of humanity, as part of the all-round transformation of society. But capitalism can only harness those productive powers if they can be used to expand capital; and labor can only be utilized within relations of exploitation for profit. Trapped within the confines and requirements of capitalism, people suffer from the kinds of horrors outlined on this page even in “normal times.” Now with two wars being carried out by U.S. imperialism, and many more raging elsewhere on the planet. . . and with a major economic crisis just beginning to be felt in every corner of the globe.…the monstrosity of this stands out all the more sharply.

That would be the "anti-capitalist" section of the article, which represents our commonly held views while we are united in the intermediate stage of political activism. The rest of the article is devoted to the specific path of the RCP, the "socialist" section.



http://revcom.us/i/151/rebel_02.jpg

From Youth by Zhang Songnan, 1972. This artwork depicts Red Guard youth making “big character posters.” During the Cultural Revolution in China, from 1966 to 1976, people put up these posters all over—on the walls of schools, factories, and neighborhoods. They were a way for the masses of people to engage in debate on a grand scale over key questions in society, including public criticism of leaders and policies.


But none of this is necessary! Humanity can embark on the road of eliminating the division into classes, uprooting the oppressive institutions and relations that grow out of and reinforce those divisions, and transforming people’s thinking. This is the road of communist revolution. The first step on that road is shattering the rule of capital through revolution. Such a revolution actually took place in the Soviet Union (Russia and other countries), and in China – and when revolution ruled those countries, the people were able to create amazing new societies that transformed everything, and met the basic needs of the people in a way never before seen.


This first stage of revolution was defeated by the remaining strength of imperialism, together with the new capitalist forces which arose within the new-born socialist societies. Today there are no socialist states. But Bob Avakian, Chairman of the RCP, USA, has developed a new framework of understanding to blaze the trail for the next stage of revolution. Avakian has analyzed the lessons of the previous stage of revolution, studying both the achievements and the criticisms, from various quarters, and has developed a new synthesis of communist scientific theory. He has built on, and carried forward, the contributions of previous revolutionary communist thinkers, and gone further.

From the Constitution of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA


The socialist state would lead and support people in making radical transformations in every sphere of society. It would construct a socialist economic system, by first taking over the major means of production (factories, land and mines, machinery and other technology, etc.) that have been owned and controlled by the big capitalists as their private property—converting these into socialist state property and utilizing them to meet the needs of the people, while rendering support to revolutionary struggle throughout the world. The socialist state would play a decisive role in moving society, through various waves and stages of multi-faceted struggle and social transformations, toward the communist vision of ensuring a common abundance for the people as a whole and overcoming the age-old division between those who work with their minds and those who work with their hands (between mental and physical labor), as well as all other oppressive divisions among people. It would act to prevent the return of the former exploiters, and resist the attacks of imperialism. It would make possible a different kind of democracy, on a far greater scale and with a much more radical vision and practice of human freedom than anything today, in line with its final goal—a final goal in which democracy itself, as a form of state, is transcended and people together debate and decide the course of things without resort to any kind of apparatus of violent suppression. Finally, this new revolutionary socialist state would be built as a “base area” for the world revolution—a springboard and support base and beacon for revolutionary struggles in other countries, all working together to get to a world without exploitation and oppression. (page 6, online at http://revcom.us/Constitution/constitution.html)


Now, my anarchist viewpoint is the basis for my judgment that the USSR and PRC were not socialist, but were authoritarian state capitalist countries that merely replicated the hierarchical structure of previously existing arrangements of governance and created a new form of proletarian alienation through their usage of command economies.

But that has no bearing on the fact that I and the RCP members are united in our anti-capitalism. And the images of the degradation that capitalism has caused, if not long, sophisticated argumentation (which should certainly not be abandoned, but for now, they have little place in populist appeals), and intense anger as a result, is an excellent foundation for the anti-capitalist movement.

[Orange Juche]

<insert inappropriate comment about mouth to scrotum activities here>

[RadioRaheem84]

In my opinion, to create a distinct movement of our own, it must be explicitly anti-capitalist. While progressives and liberal-leftists have a role in a portion of this process, our goal is not to be immersed into the coffee party movement (http://www.anonym.to/?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee_Party), but to stand out as a populist coalition that recognizes that capitalism is the fundamental cause of economic crisis and reforms within the context of capitalism will only bring about temporary alleviation.

I agree. I think that they have such a view of themselves that they will think of themselves as leader of this coalition. I've always encountered leftist movement in my days in which the progressive-liberal somehow thinks that his position it the most legitimate because its the most popular so he should lead.

I think that any coalition should be explicitly anti-capitalist and avoid any social democratic capitulation.

[revolution inaction]

But that has no bearing on the fact that I and the RCP members are united in our anti-capitalism. And the images of the degradation that capitalism has caused, if not long, sophisticated argumentation (which should certainly not be abandoned, but for now, they have little place in populist appeals), and intense anger as a result, is an excellent foundation for the anti-capitalist movement.

[/LEFT]

The rcp support state capitalism and methods that are completely incompatible with obtaining communism. Our enemies enemy is not nesceceraly our friend, and in many cases they our enemies too.

[CartCollector]

Do you think we would have to dumb down our message so the masses could accept and appreciate it?
Not dumb down, but simplify. Get to the heart of the matter. I think the Should We Rescue This pamphlet is a good example.

[Klaatu]

One hundred years ago, there actually were large gatherings of socialists and communists marching the streets in the USA! To research this, try to find a good history book which has not been "cleaned up" by capitalists or conservatives. I read this in one of my books (written at the time!) I will try to find it and get some quotes... (I have hundreds of books; books in boxes on the floor, books in storage, etc I'm like that lady in the movie "Fahrenheit 451" with the houseful of books!) BTW watch this movie, or read the book... it is a good story.

[Klaatu]

Now that we have a much smaller yet more vocal community of right wingers going on about "socialism", the media not only listens to them but keeps saying that these voices represent the people's will.

Ask a tea-partyer what "socialism" is, and you won't get a correct answer. They don't even know what they are protesting.

[RadioRaheem84]

I asked one at the local chapter near my home.

He said that Obama's socialist policies would lead to fascism in this country.

Yeah, try to dissect that sentence. I mean the guy lacks even a basic foundation of what socialism, fascism or for that matter what capitalism means. It's really sad.

[bcbm]

So we could be heard all over the country, and world, instead of just being considered a marginal political group.

we are a marginal political group and no amount of media attention will change that. what will being "heard" in this way do that actually working in our communities and building a material base couldn't achieve in a much better and more direct way?


There is no such thing as bad publicity.

i don't think holding a rally and begging for attention furthers anything. even if you did get media attention, it seems pretty likely they would distort your message.

[The Vegan Marxist]

Either way, I think we need to stop blaming the media for our inevitable lack of being known in this country. Fact of the matter is that the left is just not being organized. The U.S. is filled with a bunch of armchair revolutionaries. We're waiting for the revolution to start when we should be pushing it forward ourselves. Once someone starts pushing the dumpster down the road, more will join in. It's our fault that we're not getting known here. It's time the left started taking responsibility for themselves.

[MarxSchmarx]

Basically the hooplah about the American "tea party" protests are a result of aggressive promoting by Fox News in coordination with reactionary groups like Dick Armey's "Freedom Works", and the other media outlets covering it for no better reason than fox covered it:

http://mediamatters.org/reports/200904080025

Fox has dominated the cable news ratings in America, which has cajoled CNN to cover it and the national newspapers are following suit.

Strikes me these guys have probably read Gramsci.

[Klaatu]

I asked one at the local chapter near my home.

He said that Obama's socialist policies would lead to fascism in this country.

Yeah, try to dissect that sentence. I mean the guy lacks even a basic foundation of what socialism, fascism or for that matter what capitalism means. It's really sad.

I wonder if he watches Glenn Beck (?) hmmm.

Jon Stewart (The Daily Show) did a good skit on Beck on the Thurs March 18 episode: (will not be online until Friday)
http://www.thedailyshow.com/

(or usually rebroadcast at 7pm Eastern time the following day on Comedy Central Channel)

[¿Que?]

I wonder if he watches Glenn Beck (?) hmmm.

Jon Stewart (The Daily Show) did a good skit on Beck on the Thurs March 18 episode: (will not be online until Friday)
http://www.thedailyshow.com/

(or usually rebroadcast at 7pm Eastern time the following day on Comedy Central Channel)
I don't know. I thought his delivery was a bit over the top. It was a well thought out skit, though.

[RadioRaheem84]

I like Jon Stewart and the Colbert Report but they've really been working for the Dems lately, making it seem like people want this health care bill to pass, when the reality is that the right section of the country doesn't want it and the left wing section of America thinks it's too weak. So a huge portion of the American population does not want the bill, but Stewart has made it seem like it was because of the Fox News propaganda machine. But that only addresses the portion of the population that subscribes to the right wing mantra, not the other portion that see the bill as a watered down compromise with the insurance agencies.

Plus there is hardly a peep on those two shows about how much of an asshole Rham Emanuel is and how he has negated any progressive democrat a shot at discussing the bill in a rational manner.

I just really think that the Daily Show and Colbert Report are good at slashing the tires of the right wing machine's monster truck of propaganda but they're not even willing to put a little sugar into the tank of the Democrat's delapidated oldsmobile. Most of the time they're cheerleaders for Obama.

[bcbm]

Strikes me these guys have probably read Gramsci.

rush limbaugh has talked about gramsci in the past. the right has been appropriating ideas from the left and using them much more effectively for awhile.

[RadioRaheem84]

rush limbaugh has talked about gramsci in the past. the right has been appropriating ideas from the left and using them much more effectively for awhile.

Yes they have, and no more were they evident than in the Neo Conservative movement that dominated the Bush administration's policies on the War on Terror. I mean the language they use is almost a bastardized form of Trotskyism and Wilsonian ideals. That was the major appeal of a lot of former leftists like Christopher Hitchens, Norman Geras, Nick Cohen and liberals like Oliver Kamm who wrote the book; Anti-Totaliatarianism: The Left Wing Case for Neo-Conservatism.

Like Tim Robbins so brillantly pointed out in his great movie Bob Roberts; the right wing has stolen everything that the 60s stood for and turned it on it's head, making right wing populism the new anti-establishment.

[mikelepore]

We need to be loud and we need to be militant.

I'm either for it or I'm against it, depending on whether I agree with the wording of the message that's being expressed.

If the message is going to be "we call up on the lawmakers and the business owners to start behaving in more humanitarian ways", then I wouldn't so much as cross the street or wiggle a finger to lend it any support.

If the message is going to be "capitalism is the cause of society's problems, and therefore the working class needs to abolish capitalism", then you have a fantastic idea, the best I've heard.

[JAH23]

I'm either for it or I'm against it, depending on whether I agree with the wording of the message that's being expressed.

If the message is going to be "we call up on the lawmakers and the business owners to start behaving in more humanitarian ways", then I wouldn't so much as cross the street or wiggle a finger to lend it any support.

If the message is going to be "capitalism is the cause of society's problems, and therefore the working class needs to abolish capitalism", then you have a fantastic idea, the best I've heard.

Definitely the latter.

[h9socialist]

The American Left has a proud history of being a hell of a lot more vocal and effective than these right-wing amateurs. We don't need to be like them! We do need to be less factional, and more organized. But the Tea Party stuff is nothing new on the right, and will more than likely be nothing more than the bargain rack at political memorabilia stores in the next five to ten years.

[RadioRaheem84]

LOL. Yeah, like Newt Gingrich's "Republican Revolution" during the 90s!

[Red Commissar]

Some of the largest rallies ever assembled in the world were against the US led Iraq War. I believe in some countries they even dwarfed the Vietnam protests. The international media payed attention to them because they were hard to ignore but politicians in the coalition of the willing ignored their pleas.

Now that we have a much smaller yet more vocal community of right wingers going on about "socialism", the media not only listens to them but keeps saying that these voices represent the people's will.

This is very true. In the past few years they've had rallies that dwarfed many Tea-bagger shit that got little to no press coverage.

And here are the tea-baggers complaining about the "liberal" media not paying attention to them.

Astro-turfing helps too.

[Guerrilla22]

No one actually takes the tea baggers seriously. we should strive to be as different from them as possible.

[Jimmie Higgins]

This is very true. In the past few years they've had rallies that dwarfed many Tea-bagger shit that got little to no press coverage.

And here are the tea-baggers complaining about the "liberal" media not paying attention to them.

Astro-turfing helps too.

Right, the Immigrant rights walkouts in 2006 were even larger in number than all but the pre-war anti-war marches. A month after Glen Beck's Washington DC march where (millions according to him) a few thousand people came and got all-day coverage, there was the National Equality March which was larger according to the cop's estimates than the Tea-party march. The National Equality March was specifically making demands on Obama and resisted the mainstream LGBT org attempts to make the event pro-Obama and insults by Democratic Party politicians. But aside from print media and a few live CNN reports, the march was marginalized and not even reported by FOX.

I think the tea-parties get more and favorable coverage because of two connecting things:

1. The media tends not to report things that do not fit into their current narrative on different subjects. So if all the anchors are reporting that the occupation of Iraq is going great, they will repeat that line even as contradictory information is coming in (and even being reported by them). Their narrative and focus for reporting doesn't change until it just becomes too incredible and unbelievable to report that everything's still fine.

When Katrina happened, you could watch this process happen before your eyes on live TV. the anchor would be repeating the line given to him by the producers who got their info from the US relief effort and other "officials" meanwhile the reporter would be yelling at the anchors and saying - no, that's not what I've seen, people are desperate and the government is doing nothing.

The narrative by the mainstream media has been that Obama's "moving too fast" and the US population is too inherently conservative for "change". MSNBC might say well this change may be radical but it's what is needed while FOX says, look Americans are recognizing Obama's socialism, but the effect is the same, no one talks about what Obama's policies are really doing or what kind of reform people who voted for Obama really hoped for.

2. The tea-parties fit into the needs of the US ruling class right now. The Republicans had lost credibility and were a liability in the eyes of the ruling class and so big corporate funding switched to the Democrats beginning in 2005-06. But Obama also activated people the ruling class don't necessarily want to be emboldened or have high hopes - workers, youth, people of color. So the conservatives as well as Obama's administration itself worked really hard to then lower expectations for change. Obama talked about "bi-partisanship" and pressured liberal groups to take apologetic and non-aggressive stances. Unions were told to offer concessions in a "shared sacrifice" atmosphere and as Obama recently told Sharpton and a rep from the NAACP: he has nothing special to offer black people.

So this ruling class need is what was driving the "America is too conservative" myth that has been re-adopted as one of the mainstream explanations for what's going on politically.

In conclusion: So I don't know if a big march - of how many realistically, 25,000 - revolutionaries would not make much of an impact (unless we all had "we love Obama" t-shirts and the media could use it as proof of Obama's socialism). Our march would be marginalized and where it wasn't marginalize we would be treated as a bunch of stupid kids and crazy poor people who just like to march and hear ourselves chant.

I think what we should be doing right now is not organizing separately, but marching with the working class in the existing movements as well as the new movements right now as open radicals. The only plus to this more naked class-warfare against workers that's going on in the US right now is that our enemies are going after unions, immigrants, the poor, people of color, sexual minorities and youth - all in the same breath! That means that when we talk to people about class solidarity and the essential need for radical politics and tactics is no longer an abstract concept, it's survival.

[h9socialist]

I have yet to see any Teabaggers endure anything like the Homestead Strike or the Pullman Strike, or lead any protests like the effort to save Sacco and Vanzetti, or sacrifice their lives in the Haymarket Riot. The Tea Party movement is just a bunch of clowns in comparison!

[Nolan]

Lets get a bunch of leftists together, go to a tea bag rally and pretend to be teabaggers for a while, then hold up pro-obama signs!

[Jimmie Higgins]

Lets get a bunch of leftists together, go to a tea bag rally and pretend to be teabaggers for a while, then hold up pro-obama signs!No thanks. But maybe we can all dress up as doctors in lab-coats and clipboards and go to one of these protests. We can start examining the craziest of tea-partiers and then take some notes and say: "Gee, too bad there's no national health service in the US, otherwise we could have diagnosed this paranoid mental disorder before it became so inflamed".

[CartCollector]

It would be better if we went to the tea bagger protests and showed our hatred for Obama and the US government, and then revealed that this hatred comes from our socialism. Maybe call ourselves something like "Socialists Against Obama" or something. I bet that we would be able to watch people's brains explode in disbelief as it happened. Then we could watch the conspiracy-mongering that followed, perhaps arguing that Obama planted us there to make him look less like a socialist.

[The Idler]

pilG7PCV448It seems NewLeftMedia actually support the healthcare bill. Shame.

[Agnapostate]

The rcp support state capitalism and methods that are completely incompatible with obtaining communism. Our enemies enemy is not nesceceraly our friend, and in many cases they our enemies too.

You've ignored my point. I'm certainly in agreement that the RCP supports state capitalism and that RCP methods are incompatible with the establishment of communism. However, I never claimed otherwise. I said that they were valuable in an anti-capitalist coalition, not a socialist one. Modern political parties would be valuable in a democratic movement against monarchism, but that would not mean that we would support their republicanism.

[StalinFanboy]

It is better and more productive to spend time talking to people and doing actions in your workplace and community than try to appeal to corporate mass media.

[Red Commissar]

It would be better if we went to the tea bagger protests and showed our hatred for Obama and the US government, and then revealed that this hatred comes from our socialism. Maybe call ourselves something like "Socialists Against Obama" or something. I bet that we would be able to watch people's brains explode in disbelief as it happened. Then we could watch the conspiracy-mongering that followed, perhaps arguing that Obama planted us there to make him look less like a socialist.

Real socialists from the beginning declared themselves to be as such. There were a few shit bags who backed Obama but by and large the real ones didn't.

The problem comes with the clout mass media has. We can say all we want, it won't matter. We'll just have to settle with doing what we can locally.

Like a real 'grassroots' group does.

[RadioRaheem84]

Look, there is no point declaring that we're socialists against Obama because we'll just be seen as a minority to the Tea Baggers. I mean the mainstream media also is to blame as the ruling class doesn't even know what socialism entails. Their idiotic Time Magazine cover "We're all Socialists now", was an inane attempt to say that government spending = socialism.

[JAH23]

It is better and more productive to spend time talking to people and doing actions in your workplace and community than try to appeal to corporate mass media.

The objective isn't to appeal to corporate mass media. That is the last thing we want to do. The point is to be a loud and strong enough force that many people, and eventually the media notice us. If they distort our message, then we shall make it clear what it is we stand for. You are correct, doing action in your community and workplace is extremely important, but so is the uniting of all workplaces and communities and standing up strong against capitalism.

[Dimentio]

I don't think the tea baggers are good role models. I am not speaking from an ideological but from an organisational point of view. They are united by what they oppose, and such umbrella movements either fall apart or fall prey to parts of the establishment (compare the Civil Rights movement during the late 1960's or the Zeitgeist Movement today).

[Outinleftfield]

It would be better if we went to the tea bagger protests and showed our hatred for Obama and the US government, and then revealed that this hatred comes from our socialism. Maybe call ourselves something like "Socialists Against Obama" or something. I bet that we would be able to watch people's brains explode in disbelief as it happened. Then we could watch the conspiracy-mongering that followed, perhaps arguing that Obama planted us there to make him look less like a socialist.

I like the idea. If we're going to get any media attention we need to go to the where the media is paying attention(the teabaggers). When there's a teabagger protest coming up organize a "Socialists Against Obama" protest at the same place. Go in to the protest area with signs and start chanting about how Obama is a capitalist pig and be sure to get as much media attention as possible. But how do we find out ahead of time when these protests are going to be? I don't know where to look to get updates on teabagger protests.

EDIT: But cause the publi isn't all the bright about socialism we should try and be specific about what we don't like. Bring up how the health care bill is just a way to ensure profits to the health insurance industry.

Maybe even call ourselves "Anticorporatists Against Obama". I find that if I call "capitalism" corporatism I get a lot more people agreeing with me when I talk about how its bad and needs to be abolished.

[JAH23]

I don't think the tea baggers are good role models. I am not speaking from an ideological but from an organisational point of view. They are united by what they oppose, and such umbrella movements either fall apart or fall prey to parts of the establishment (compare the Civil Rights movement during the late 1960's or the Zeitgeist Movement today).

Which is why a leftist movement would be stronger because (for the most part) we know what we want, and definitely know what we do not want. We wouldn't be blabbing about our taxes going up because of socialist Obama's death panels, we would be expressing solutions to capitalism's problems.

[ComradeOm]

I have yet to see any Teabaggers endure anything like the Homestead Strike or the Pullman Strike, or lead any protests like the effort to save Sacco and Vanzetti, or sacrifice their lives in the Haymarket Riot. The Tea Party movement is just a bunch of clowns in comparison!And that's because different classes organise in different fashions. The mass strike or rally has traditionally been a tool of the working class because it reflects both their numerical advantage and their means of organising (historically unions). In contrast you do not see millionaires filling streets/cities because they wield their power/influence in a very different way

The Tea Party movement, being an expression of incoherent middle class rage, is naturally unable to assume a mass character and instead it takes the form of local protests that are, overall, small and insignificant. It is only the prism of the media that gives their movement any semblance of mass appeal. Similarly the localised structure of this movement means that it has no firm polices of its own and, as Dimentio points out, is only unified in its opposition. It represents the diffuse rage of the American middle classes and little more

So why socialists should copy anything about this movement is beyond me. When the left does take to the streets it tends to do so en masse and with a decided aim (be it economic or political) in mind. Neither of these attributes lend themselves to small localised protests

[revolution inaction]

You've ignored my point. I'm certainly in agreement that the RCP supports state capitalism and that RCP methods are incompatible with the establishment of communism. However, I never claimed otherwise. I said that they were valuable in an anti-capitalist coalition, not a socialist one. Modern political parties would be valuable in a democratic movement against monarchism, but that would not mean that we would support their republicanism.

They have no value in an "anti-capitalist coalition" there methods are completely opposed to ours, and not genuinely opposed to capitalism, they seek to implemet a differnt form of capitalism where the state controls everything.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I like the idea. If we're going to get any media attention we need to go to the where the media is paying attention(the teabaggers). When there's a teabagger protest coming up organize a "Socialists Against Obama" protest at the same place. Go in to the protest area with signs and start chanting about how Obama is a capitalist pig and be sure to get as much media attention as possible. But how do we find out ahead of time when these protests are going to be? I don't know where to look to get updates on teabagger protests.


I agree with the sentiment, but I think in this case, a lot of working class people (primarily blacks and Latinos) rightly see the racism barely hidden beneath the "demands" of the tea-partiers. I would not want to risk our opposition to Obama to be mixed-up and connected to the racist nut anti-Obama sentiment.

The LaRouche people are basically being opportunitst towards this movement (or maybe it's just a metaphysical magnetic force bringing the proto-fascists of American libertarianism - tea-partiers - together with the proto-fascists of American Keynesianism - the LaRouchies) and are the ones who began selling all the images of Obama with a hitler mustache. It's strange, since the LaRouche people want to use the state to invest in infrastructure on a massive scale, that they would even entertain appealing to people who think the Post Office is similar to a NAZI work camp or collectivized farming in the USSR. But then again, I stopped trying to understand their politics and motivations some time ago.



Maybe even call ourselves "Anticorporatists Against Obama". I find that if I call "capitalism" corporatism I get a lot more people agreeing with me when I talk about how its bad and needs to be abolished.Very true and I think that shows how shallow anti-radical sentiment really is in the US - and for the same reason, why the establishment wants to ignore and marginalize our ideas as much as they can. There's really no winning with the media because if we are not leading a protest movement, then we are always outside agitators but then if we are more fully involved in a protest movement, we are accused of taking advantage of idealistic liberals. Further I think we should call ourselves anarchists, marxists, socialists ect because the right wing is going to accuse us of communism not matter what we call ourselves - hell they call ACORN and the ACLU communist as it is! So if we hide our political traditions, it may help a litter to get our foot in the door, but in the long term it will bite us in the ass because then when our allies find out we really are marxists or anarchists, we will be playing into all the old stereotypes from the US CP about radicals hiding themselves and pulling strings.

The best way to cut through the media and political mischaracterization of our tradditions and politics and tactics is to work with students and workers and show in practice how our politics relate to their struggle and are necessary if they want to defeat their boss, the system, etc. This kind of contact with people is like a gateway to radical consciousness. It's like when people try weed in High school: they've been fed all this information about the drug, then they meet other people who use it and see that they are not necessarily insane burnouts but are normal and then they might decide to try it for themselves. Or like Lincoln supposedly said: you can fool all of the people some of the time (think the initial jingoism after 9/11, or the unwarranted blind hope most people had about Obama) and you can fool some of the people all the time (think die-hard right-wing tea-partiers, racists, libertarians and liberals) but you can't fool all of the people all of the time.

[Dimentio]

Which is why a leftist movement would be stronger because (for the most part) we know what we want, and definitely know what we do not want. We wouldn't be blabbing about our taxes going up because of socialist Obama's death panels, we would be expressing solutions to capitalism's problems.

You have tried the same methods of organising since the Civil Rights days. There was a small resurgence in the late 90's and early years of the first decade of this millennium, but most of the dynamics today instead is happening within The Zeitgeist Movement, which during just two years have grown to 360 000 people, a growth which I cannot see any leftist organisation match in recent. Of course, TZM has inherent flaws which I predict soon would cause its downfall and collapse into various factions, but its success must be analysed.

I think the radical left is seen as patronising and arrogant by a lot of potential supporters. The left in North America seems to be very much of a campus phenomenon, and is generally very intellectual and theoretically well-developed. Yet, it seems that the language it is using is shrinking as a frame of reference amongst the population - partially to blame is the erosion of education in the general population.

I do not joke when I say that I have seen Zeitgeisters slag off socialism and communism as well as moderate leftist movements in the USA, while at the same time aggressively supporting the frescoite vision of the world, which is probably more communistic than any of the movements they are slagging off.

For those reasons listed above, I think the US isn't ready for Higgins's proposals above. That seems to be exactly what the left is working so hard to achieve, with so very little success.

[Wolf Larson]

After all the media hype about the Tea Party protests, their selection of candidates for public office, and their 'grassroots' organizing, why can't the far left have the same impact that the Tea Party has? Is it the media? Do you think FOX and CNN would not take the time to cover a revolting leftist group? I just think that if these fascist tea baggers can take the time to organize and seek out public attention, we should too.

It is time for us to come together and create a United Leftist Front. We need loud opposition to the growing fascism in this country. I'm sick of people taking the rhetoric of Glenn Beck seriously. I feel there is no true leftist voice anymore. If we do not organize on a massive scale, then it is my belief that the Tea Party will continue to get public attention and gain more power in public offices.

We need public attention. We need to be on the six 'o clock news. We need to be talked and debated about. We need to get fucking noticed.

We need to be loud and we need to be militant.
The left is just as bad as the right. There is no difference between a liberal capitalist and conservative capitalist. Also, you must not understand why the US media exists. It exists to manufacture consent for capitalism it will NEVER condone actions taken to end capitalism. You should turn your back on liberals not try to join hands with them.

[RadioRaheem84]

Does anyone in here make less than 29K a year? Because if so, you will be able to buy into the Public Option Exchange Plan they might set up. If you make more than 29k a year and less than 250k, I think the bill might not be the best thing for you, but you might want to take advantage of the regulated private insurance.

http://www.speaker.gov/newsroom/factcheck?id=0120

Supposedly this public option will keep the insurance costs in check.

[Jimmie Higgins]

What's the zeitgeist movement - do they not exist in California? How are their tactics more dynamic - or in your opinion what is their appeal that the radical movement doesn't have?

Just based on what you wrote, I don't know if growth in numbers at that level are much of an indication of anything concrete other than an indication maybe that people are dissatisfied with traditional mainstream politics right now. The "coffee party" appeared in a week and gained 50,000 members on paper, but this doesn't tell us much about consciousness right now (or where the politics of this group will lead to at this point), other than there are a lot of people angry at the political establishment and the right-wing domination of politics and so they are looking for something to stand up for populist liberal politics.

I don't think it's correct to characterize the last 30 years of activism as "we've been doing the same tactics and it doesn't resonate". The CP in the 1930s actually had sit-ins against racism and segregation and led campaigns against the racist use of the justice system and they gained a lot of support, but this alone did not spark a civil rights movement. Does this mean that people weren't interested in ending segregation, no it meant that there were some objective circumstances which led people to either not believe ending segregation was possible or that it wasn't the main priority and so on.

During the depression, as late as 1934 union membership was 3-4 million and the CP had 30 thousand members. In a few years both would more than double - especially the CP which increased to the hundreds of thousands. Some of this was because of subjective changes - the CP went into popular front mode and this allowed them to attract more people but really it was the larger changes happening - namely the depression dragged on for workers even as the economy improved for the rich and, more importantly, industrial unions were being formed and began winning which gave militancy credibility as the way from working people to collectively fight back.

The Socialist Party and the IWW were organizing for a long time and much of what they were doing or wanted to do was not much different from what the civil rights/new left would do or what activists in the CP or CIO did during the depression so it's not always just tactics sometimes we have to let reality of the system show people the nature of the class war. But what the SP and IWW was just as important even though they never grew to the size or had the influence of the CP at its height - these earlier groups created the foundation for the mass radicalization that happened decades later by showing people how to how to organize people, how to stand up to the bosses, the hired thugs, the police and so on.

So lack of strike activity or working class action right now doesn't mean that US workers are not ready for more radical politics and tactics - it just means that they don't have many living examples of how to do this successfully for the most part. The big-picture objective factors are now in our favor more than they have ever been in my lifetime - a crisis of capitalism, the realization that workers can not hope for some American dream, the realization that the rich get off easy while the rest of us share all the sacrifice, that spending on war is more important to the US than domestic stability, and the realization that these class issues are connected. We used to say "money for schools, not for war" during anti-war marches... well this is no longer just an abstract piece of propaganda - now it's a concrete demand to most people.

I don't think there is any way to by-pass the problems of not having a left in the US other than to confront the problems head on and build a left. We need to organize at the grassroots level among people who are probably a mix of liberal ideas and some class-conscious ideas - this will help show in practice what we are about and show them the bankruptcy of liberal solutions to working class problems. This will also help more workers to learn militant tactics even if they never become revolutionaries themselves.

[Rusty Shackleford]

Im glad our lot isnt like the tea partyers.

this is one reason why (http://www.kansascity.com/2010/03/20/1826369_tea-party-protesters-hurl-racial.html?storylink=omni_popular)


Demonstrators outside the U.S. Capitol, angry over the proposed health-care reform bill, shouted "nigger" Saturday at U.S. Rep. John Lewis, a Georgia congressman and civil rights icon who was nearly beaten to death during an Alabama march in the 1960s.
The protesters also shouted obscenities at other members of the Congressional Black Caucus, lawmakers said.

[Dimentio]

What's the zeitgeist movement - do they not exist in California? How are their tactics more dynamic - or in your opinion what is their appeal that the radical movement doesn't have?

Just based on what you wrote, I don't know if growth in numbers at that level are much of an indication of anything concrete other than an indication maybe that people are dissatisfied with traditional mainstream politics right now. The "coffee party" appeared in a week and gained 50,000 members on paper, but this doesn't tell us much about consciousness right now (or where the politics of this group will lead to at this point), other than there are a lot of people angry at the political establishment and the right-wing domination of politics and so they are looking for something to stand up for populist liberal politics.

I don't think it's correct to characterize the last 30 years of activism as "we've been doing the same tactics and it doesn't resonate". The CP in the 1930s actually had sit-ins against racism and segregation and led campaigns against the racist use of the justice system and they gained a lot of support, but this alone did not spark a civil rights movement. Does this mean that people weren't interested in ending segregation, no it meant that there were some objective circumstances which led people to either not believe ending segregation was possible or that it wasn't the main priority and so on.

During the depression, as late as 1934 union membership was 3-4 million and the CP had 30 thousand members. In a few years both would more than double - especially the CP which increased to the hundreds of thousands. Some of this was because of subjective changes - the CP went into popular front mode and this allowed them to attract more people but really it was the larger changes happening - namely the depression dragged on for workers even as the economy improved for the rich and, more importantly, industrial unions were being formed and began winning which gave militancy credibility as the way from working people to collectively fight back.

The Socialist Party and the IWW were organizing for a long time and much of what they were doing or wanted to do was not much different from what the civil rights/new left would do or what activists in the CP or CIO did during the depression so it's not always just tactics sometimes we have to let reality of the system show people the nature of the class war. But what the SP and IWW was just as important even though they never grew to the size or had the influence of the CP at its height - these earlier groups created the foundation for the mass radicalization that happened decades later by showing people how to how to organize people, how to stand up to the bosses, the hired thugs, the police and so on.

So lack of strike activity or working class action right now doesn't mean that US workers are not ready for more radical politics and tactics - it just means that they don't have many living examples of how to do this successfully for the most part. The big-picture objective factors are now in our favor more than they have ever been in my lifetime - a crisis of capitalism, the realization that workers can not hope for some American dream, the realization that the rich get off easy while the rest of us share all the sacrifice, that spending on war is more important to the US than domestic stability, and the realization that these class issues are connected. We used to say "money for schools, not for war" during anti-war marches... well this is no longer just an abstract piece of propaganda - now it's a concrete demand to most people.

I don't think there is any way to by-pass the problems of not having a left in the US other than to confront the problems head on and build a left. We need to organize at the grassroots level among people who are probably a mix of liberal ideas and some class-conscious ideas - this will help show in practice what we are about and show them the bankruptcy of liberal solutions to working class problems. This will also help more workers to learn militant tactics even if they never become revolutionaries themselves.

I am not saying that you shouldn't be radical, I am just saying that I don't think the aesthetics of the '68 revolution are as appealing today as they were back then. If you had played your cards right, the people following the Zeitgeist Movement today could have belonged to the left. Moreover, TZM has not cannibalised on the left to what I know, as experienced leftists often denounce large parts of the message of TZM, while those who seem apolitical are attracted to it, claiming it to be an eye-opener and so on.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I am not saying that you shouldn't be radical, I am just saying that I don't think the aesthetics of the '68 revolution are as appealing today as they were back then. If you had played your cards right, the people following the Zeitgeist Movement today could have belonged to the left. Moreover, TZM has not cannibalised on the left to what I know, as experienced leftists often denounce large parts of the message of TZM, while those who seem apolitical are attracted to it, claiming it to be an eye-opener and so on.

Ok, fine. I don't know anything about this group, that's why I was asking - also because the wikipedia entry doesn't tell me much about who they are, what they are like, or how they operate.

The other part of my reply I guess was my misunderstanding of your point about the left using the same tactics.

[Red Commissar]

With the vote coming up we'll probably have another wave of Tea Baggers in the media and spamming comments on news sites.

[Rusty Shackleford]

With the vote coming up we'll probably have another wave of Tea Baggers in the media and spamming comments on news sites.

that and once the "Health Care" bill passes im sure there might be a spike in militancy of teabaggers, or when they realize its nothing, they may stop talking.

[Dimentio]

I would shortly define TZM as a messianic, millennarian non-marxist communist activist movement which is advocating the vision of Jacque Fresco. Zeitgeist III, Fear or Love, is premiering in October and it will attempt to further concretisise their movement.

[Rusty Shackleford]

I would shortly define TZM as a messianic, millennarian non-marxist communist activist movement which is advocating the vision of Jacque Fresco. Zeitgeist III, Fear or Love, is premiering in October and it will attempt to further concretisise their movement.

messianic and millenarian are definitely good words for that movement. they are surely not marxist. and they are extremely utopian communists.

Their messiah is Jacques Fresco and that whole venus project i think.

if i remember clearly, they were advocating what seemed to be almost a technocracy. complete automation of industry and all that. and a resource based economy. they even have it down to how they want to plan the cities. all circular, and almost cookie-cutter like.

its probably best to read up on this because it is definitely popular. if you do run into a ZMer though, i would strongly suggest trying to snap them out of it and nudge them in the right direction. the general concept is what we advocate but their way of doing it is incredibly utopian.

[Dimentio]

Jacque Fresco is 94 years old. I would say that there is more to him than meets the eye, but he is one of just a few intellectuals within the ZM.

[Jimmie Higgins]

that and once the "Health Care" bill passes im sure there might be a spike in militancy of teabaggers, or when they realize its nothing, they may stop talking.

Actually I think the media and possibly the ruling class is closing ranks on the tea-baggers. The Republicans will try and co-opt the co-optable parts of the milieu while further marginalizing the more fanatical parts. In the Spring I think the establishment was a little worried about people having high hopes for change and so they encouraged the far right as an excuse to say "see the country doesn't want change" - now I think they feel this threat had been dashed and they can rally behind Obama's pro-corporate plan and both parties can save face to their supporters (Democrats: "We did something", Republicans: "We stopped something, they just went around us").

I don't have hard evidence for this - it's my hunch at this point based on the change in tone from establishment op-eds regarding the tea-parties. In the spring even some liberal newspapers were writing glowingly about tea-partiers excercizing "democracy". Now the right wing is criticizing them to a certain extent and with the rascist and homophobic chants the tea-ers were using this past weekend I think the conservative adults feel it's time to put the right-wing children on a time out.

Of course co-opting some and marginalizing others won't mean that the threat is gone - it might lead some of these crazies right into the arms of "patriot" militias and fascist groups.

[Red Commissar]

Actually I think the media and possibly the ruling class is closing ranks on the tea-baggers. The Republicans will try and co-opt the co-optable parts of the milieu while further marginalizing the more fanatical parts. In the Spring I think the establishment was a little worried about people having high hopes for change and so they encouraged the far right as an excuse to say "see the country doesn't want change" - now I think they feel this threat had been dashed and they can rally behind Obama's pro-corporate plan and both parties can save face to their supporters (Democrats: "We did something", Republicans: "We stopped something, they just went around us").

I don't have hard evidence for this - it's my hunch at this point based on the change in tone from establishment op-eds regarding the tea-parties. In the spring even some liberal newspapers were writing glowingly about tea-partiers excercizing "democracy". Now the right wing is criticizing them to a certain extent and with the rascist and homophobic chants the tea-ers were using this past weekend I think the conservative adults feel it's time to put the right-wing children on a time out.

Of course co-opting some and marginalizing others won't mean that the threat is gone - it might lead some of these crazies right into the arms of "patriot" militias and fascist groups.

That will probably happen. Remember the wave of American "independent" movements that was spawned by Perot's run for the White House? The furthest they got on their own was electing Jesse Ventura for Minnesota governor, but for the most part they were utilized to build up support for the "Contract with America".

[Dimentio]

It is actually Obama's best hope right now that the Tea Party is rallying behind some strong "independent". Clinton won his 1992 election exactly because Perot drew away votes from Bush I.

[Comrade_Stalin]

It is actually Obama's best hope right now that the Tea Party is rallying behind some strong "independent". Clinton won his 1992 election exactly because Perot drew away votes from Bush I.

I also think that Obama will win because of the Tea Party. But it will change nothing as Obama has not changed anything after coming to power.

[Dimentio]

I also think that Obama will win because of the Tea Party. But it will change nothing as Obama has not changed anything after coming to power.

Society always is changing itself. Sometimes, governments also change society, but seldom for the better (*cough* Patriot Act *cough*).

[h9socialist]

How about just leave those chumps alone? We don't need to waste our time on them. The real power to worry about resides in the trans-national corporations and banks. That's where the battle lines should be.

[Dimentio]

How about just leave those chumps alone? We don't need to waste our time on them. The real power to worry about resides in the trans-national corporations and banks. That's where the battle lines should be.

The problem is that the Tea Partiers stand between you (as an American progressive) and the corporations.

[Agnapostate]

Real socialists from the beginning declared themselves to be as such. There were a few shit bags who backed Obama but by and large the real ones didn't.

And the ones who did opted to do so under no illusion that he was a socialist, but rather that he was a lesser of two evils, in mind of John McCain's imperialistic mindset.


But how do we find out ahead of time when these protests are going to be? I don't know where to look to get updates on teabagger protests.

The main organizers send out frequent Web updates. I suspect, however, that an outpouring of “socialists against Obama” would be attacked as a liberal plant of phony socialists or an attempt by socialists to not snitch on their comrade in power. So it would be necessary to emphasize that there is not a single major socialist organization that believes that Barack Obama is one. There is not a single self-described socialist on this forum that would describe him as a fellow socialist. A powerful statement, but a powerfully true and telling one. While the denials of high-profile socialist officials may be attacked as a conspiracy orchestrated by the Obama administration (as the SPUSA’s statements on the matter have been), the unanimous consensus by the rank-and-file can perhaps not be dismissed so easily.


EDIT: But cause the publi isn't all the bright about socialism we should try and be specific about what we don't like. Bring up how the health care bill is just a way to ensure profits to the health insurance industry.

It should be made clear that the intervention of the state in the capitalist economy so frequently decried as socialism is a necessary mechanism for the maintenance of macroeconomic stabilization. Capitalism relies on government intervention, as opposed to socialism, which will always have an uncomfortable relationship with the centralization of managerial power due to its nature as the public ownership and management of the means of production and the divergence between state officials and the general population.


Maybe even call ourselves "Anticorporatists Against Obama". I find that if I call "capitalism" corporatism I get a lot more people agreeing with me when I talk about how its bad and needs to be abolished.

I would abandon that tactic, to be honest. Describing the failings of capitalism with euphemisms permits propertarians (the most frequent employers of such petty smokescreens), to avoid a strong critique of capitalism.


They have no value in an "anti-capitalist coalition" there methods are completely opposed to ours, and not genuinely opposed to capitalism, they seek to implemet a differnt form of capitalism where the state controls everything.

That is what I said. I also said that I would not support the RCP if there were any true danger of their implementation of Maoism and a cult around Avakian, nor the PSL if there were any true danger of their implementation of Leninism. As it is, however, they oppose corporate-market capitalism, despite supporting state capitalism. Therefore, if their strength merged with anarchist activism were to harm capitalism, it would be desirable. It’s merely a matter of embracing the consequences that lead to the greatest reduction of authoritarianism. If the strength of pro-capitalist “libertarians” combined with the power and influence of anarchists were to have reduced the tyranny of Stalinism, I’d suggest that it also would have been desirable to collaborate with them, since their goal of the introduction of capitalism would not have been feasible. That said, I’d also carefully note here that the mindset of the anarchist and libertarian is closer to that of the Leninist and other self-described socialists than to the mindset of the propertarian.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I also think that Obama will win because of the Tea Party. But it will change nothing as Obama has not changed anything after coming to power.Unless there is a big left-wing populist or working class upsurge in struggle and demands:thumbup1: then the ruling class will think - thank god for Obama, he can talk to these people and offer them some reforms to shut them up. But that would probably backfire on them too!

[Jacobinist]

It's not fair to compare our socialist movement with that of the corporate funded (Freedom Works) Tea Party. While leftists organizations are constantly underfunded, dismal, and completely ignored by the media, the upstart Tea Party with its 'Founding Fathers' symbolism and bullshit have captured the media's attention. Not because they're right (heaven's no) but because they're safe to publicize.

If Revleft held a 'health-care' town hall meeting in which bourgeois government representatives would be there in attendance, and we showed up with rifles and hate filled language and propaganda (like the Teabaggers do, frequently), we would probably be arrested on the spot. But the Tea Baggers are allowed to do so, largely because they are ignorant, safe, and white.

Im not against the Tea Party tho. We should join it, and subvert it, and stage a coup. That would be revolutionary.

Id like to see the Tea Baggers drop the racism, and pick up the class struggle. I'd bet you then, they'd be suppressed too.

[Sendo]

The rcp support state capitalism and methods that are completely incompatible with obtaining communism. Our enemies enemy is not nesceceraly our friend, and in many cases they our enemies too.

This is why some anarchists piss me off. Instead of an anti-capitalist, pro-worker coalition and then letting the people decide as time passes how to further the struggle beyond getting social services and critiquing capitalism, I hear this shit.

So, the US empire is preferrable to even the worst stories of Stalin. Magnificent. Let's discuss WHICH is the ONLY country to have dropped nukes, which country sends its corporations abroad to exploit the lack of labor and environmental laws?

As for China, they only pollute out of necessity. They have 4 times the population of America. It is an industrializing nation with 1.2 billion people and their CO2 is equal to America.

WHICH countries force farmers to sell rainforest timber for a pittance because they can't make enough money?

No socialist or semi-socialist state has ever been bad like the USA has been bad. Pick a fucking side. Right now there is a dichotomy: racist fascists and neoliberals on one side (pretending to fight) and then socialists, and communists on the other. And you choose the former.

[RadioRaheem84]

I have to ask though. Have anarchists been co-opted by Liberals or is there doctrinal purity real? I mean I am no one to support the USSR or any totalitarian regime but the numbers attributed to the USSR and China were grossly exaggerated and misrepresented. This doesn't excuse the harsh power at all but in the large scope of things, USSR and China had relatively less bloodshed in their ascendancy than Western Europe. The US alone committed a Holocaust against Africans, fought a civil war, dropped two atomic bombs over civilians, has hegemonic control over the world with its corporate tentacles, is responsible for most of the bloodshed in the third world during the Cold War, leads the pack on IMF and World Bank gangsters with their structural adjustment programs, media manipulation, Wars, Vietnam. I mean why do we spend so much time preferring the US to the USSR? Because we have the relative freedom to say what we want even though we're marginalize to the point where it's futile? The USSR was not a workers paradise and it was the anti-thesis to a socialist democracy, but sometimes the hate for it by left-coms and anarchists almost translate into the US being a preferable model? No? We may have gained a lot through the democratic struggle against capitalism in the early twentieth century, but the US never changed it's ways abroad and is still a hegemonic force looking for new markets to conquer.

The US foreign policy was worse than the USSR, while domestic policy was better in the US than in the USSR. This weird situation has us confused as to where we stand as leftists.

[revolution inaction]

This is why some anarchists piss me off. Instead of an anti-capitalist, pro-worker coalition and then letting the people decide as time passes how to further the struggle beyond getting social services and critiquing capitalism, I hear this shit.

So, the US empire is preferrable to even the worst stories of Stalin.

....

Pick a fucking side. Right now there is a dichotomy: racist fascists and neoliberals on one side (pretending to fight) and then socialists, and communists on the other. And you choose the former.

Fuck off you lying dishonest reactionary capitalist supporting bastard.
Communist don't pick the "nice" or weaker capitalists to support, we don't pick pepse over coke or sony over micrsoft or ibm over intel, and we certainly don't pick the ussr over the usa.
If you really cant understand what it means to be a communist and not just a follower of the team with the red flags then you've got no business calling your self a revolutionary

[revolution inaction]

The US foreign policy was worse than the USSR, while domestic policy was better in the US than in the USSR. This weird situation has us confused as to where we stand as leftists.

Maybe for leftist, communists don't pick which bourgeois government to support.

[RadioRaheem84]

Maybe for leftist, communists don't pick which bourgeois government to support.

That wasn't really the point. It's not to support one or the other but to not fall indirectly in support of the USA when denouncing the USSR and vice versa. The issue is still more complex, then both were bad, thus both need to be disparaged.

[revolution inaction]

That wasn't really the point. It's not to support one or the other but to not fall indirectly in support of the USA when denouncing the USSR and vice versa. The issue is still more complex, then both were bad, thus both need to be disparaged.

I thought you were saying that anachist are liberals for refusing to choose between the ussr and the usa.

[Jacobinist]

"USSR and China had relatively less bloodshed in their ascendancy than Western Europe."- Radio

Are you serious? Look up the Great leap foward. Look up when Stalin ended the NEP and began his 5 year plans.

"The US foreign policy was worse than the USSR, while domestic policy was better in the US than in the USSR." - Radio

Agreeable, but very debatable. First of all, you sound like you dont think the USSR embarked on any imperialist adventures. Quite contrary to the fact, the Soviet Union WAS an empire. The international CP and parties loyal to the COMINTERN obeyed and carried out orders from Moscow, for Moscow. Any of this bullshit that the USSR provided weapons for free is a fallacy, it was always in exchange for some other commodity, be it cash, sugar or oil.

[RadioRaheem84]

Are you serious? Look up the Great leap foward. Look up when Stalin ended the NEP and began his 5 year plans.

Um, you know I am not starting at 1917 or 1949 when Commie Russia and China began with the Western Powers. I am starting at a much, much earlier date, i.e. from the ascendancy of the liberal revolutions. The colonialization process that underdeveloped many nations in the "third world", the slave trade, the civil wars, the exploitation of natural resources, WWI, the Cold War, etc. The US alone racks up more body bags than the USSR and China.


Agreeable, but very debatable. First of all, you sound like you dont think the USSR embarked on any imperialist adventures. Quite contrary to the fact, the Soviet Union WAS an empire. The international CP and parties loyal to the COMINTERN obeyed and carried out orders from Moscow, for Moscow. Any of this bullshit that the USSR provided weapons for free is a fallacy, it was always in exchange for some other commodity, be it cash, sugar or oil.


OK, there is a stark difference in helping out regimes whether national bourgeoise or socialist that were against Western Imperialism and trading with them. The USSR had some expansionist ambitions and had their client states but where are you coming up with this idea that the USSR trade deals were the same as US imperialism. Supporting the right side in a civil war against a despotic regime that the US supports is two different things.

[Jacobinist]

"I am starting at a much, much earlier date, i.e. from the ascendancy of the liberal revolutions." - Radio

Well in that case, its not fair to criticize the US alone in that era. Tsarist Russia, Imperial Spain/France/England/Germany, etc. are to blame too. I see what you're saying. But what Im saying is that the current oligarchs in China began with Mao, and the Soviet oligarchs began in 17.

"Supporting the right side in a civil war against a despotic regime that the US supports is two different things." - radio

Ok, try this: Supporting the right side in a civil war against a despotic regime that the US-SR supports is two different things.

That argument is flawed and works for both sides. Really think about it. What do the Soviets say about their invasion of Afghanistan?:
We didn't invade, no, the legitimate [Afghan] government asked us to intervene.

And what do American's say about Vietnam?:
We didn't invade, no, the legitimate [Vietnamese] government asked us to intervene.

It works both ways buddy.