Advocating Democracy

[Dasein]

A group of concerned citizens and I have been working on a leftist project, Advocating Democracy, which I think many of may find insightful and worth checking out.

Our aim is to cut through the hollow political rhetoric in order to get to the heart of the real issues. We are advocating meaningful dialogue rather than dishonest debate.

We are advocating our support for the political party, and all politicians who stand for a clean environmental future, a flourishing public education system, and a more equitable tax distribution.

Check out our website at advocatingdemocracy dot com; you can also find us on facebook and youtube.

[The Idler]

What do you mean by "the political party"?

[The Jay]

Do you oppose Capitalism or just want to "humanize" it?

[Hermes]

It's a very well made website, but I can't agree that voting Democrat will fix any of our problems.

The problems you want to fix run deeper than a political candidate, I think.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

A more accurate title would be "Advocating Bourgeois Democracy", which makes the Albert Einstein quote kind of ironic, since you're trying to fix something that is fundamentally broken, using the structures of that system.

[Dasein]

Do you oppose Capitalism or just want to "humanize" it?

We are all socialists; however, we realize at this point in time, capitalism is not going anywhere. To quote Saul D Alinsky, ‎"As an organizer I start from where the world is, as it is, not as I would like it to be. That we accept the world as it is does not in any sense weaken our desire to change it into what we believe it should be—it is necessary to begin where the world is if we are going to change it to what we think it should be. That means working in the system." If we want to change anything, we realize we're going to have to work within the current system to change it.



It's a very well made website, but I can't agree that voting Democrat will fix any of our problems.

The problems you want to fix run deeper than a political candidate, I think.

It's nice to hear feedback about the website. I'm not a web designer, so that was one of the first times I put together a website and I'm still not sure if I like the everything about it.

I don't think voting democrat will solve all of our problems but given that it is either going to be a republican or democrat in office, I definitely think voting democrat is the best chance we have to start changing the system. The republicans are literally rolling back on civil rights which must be stopped.

The problems we want fixed do run deeper than a political candidate but like I previously mentioned, if we want the system to be changed, we must work within the system. There are certain thing which can be changed without the use of politics; however, there are also certain things which can't be changed without politics.



A more accurate title would be "Advocating Bourgeois Democracy", which makes the Albert Einstein quote kind of ironic, since you're trying to fix something that is fundamentally broken, using the structures of that system.

The Einstein quote is in reference to the economic plan of the republicans. In times of crisis and in times prosperity, supply side economics, aka the republican economic plan, calls for cutting taxes on the extremely wealthy, creating more investment and in turn creating more jobs. If we look throughout history, this does not work. Cutting taxes for the wealthy is part of what got the US into the current recession.




I understand you are all leftists who want to see the abolition of capitalism and the rise of the proletariat, but revolution doesn't take place over night. We must acknowledge our starting point and realistically work towards our ultimate goal, if we wish to accomplish anything.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I understand you are all leftists who want to see the abolition of capitalism and the rise of the proletariat, but revolution doesn't take place over night. We must acknowledge our starting point and realistically work towards our ultimate goal, if we wish to accomplish anything.Well frankly this is what I try and do with my organizing time, but I just have a very different view of what tasks are necissary and how we can help our class prepare and organize itself.

First I don't think our power comes from voting - this dosn't mean I'm against any kind of participation on principle, but it's just not the main location of our power as workers - that power being that we're the ones that make everything in society function ultimately. So we are always going to be out-funded and have more powerful people shaping the electoral sphere. More importantly, economic power is seperated from political power formally in capitalism which means that the electoral system of capitalist countries is self-limiting in many ways.

So I think the most realistic and important thing we can do given the present low-level of struggle, low level of working class militancy, etc is to actually try and help workers organize themselves in actual struggles. This will begin to unite workers as they can see that the fight of the teachers is as much about fights for racial justice in public education, that the struggle for union rights in Chicago is similar to fights of workers elsewhere etc. So people will begin to learn that solidarity for themselves potentially. Second by trying to organize fight-back from below, workers are also able to learn how to directly fight and can potentially learn lessons and build up their ability to fight-back; rebuild social movements against oppression; rebuild shop-floor militancy in an organic way.

This may seem small, but for just a minute consider that 4 years of Obama saw a RETREAT on all these things; saw Obama "save" the auto-industry by helping the union bosses sell concessions to the workforce; saw the tea-party take the initiative. Conversly, what effect did a week of protests in Wisconsin do, it blew apart the myths of a "tea-party real america" and had people talking about the need for unions and even talking about themselves as workers; and it generated a ton of solidarity. What did the Occupy movement accomplish in a few weeks compared to years of Obama's political "realism"? It shifted the whole national discussion and for a while changed the debate from how "entitiled workers" are ruining it for everyone to how the banks and the 1% were the ones fucking everyone over.

Finally, even taken at face value, I don't understand this website's misson statement if they are advocating a vote for Obama - even a critical one.

Here's the mission statement:


1). No more cuts to education.
2). Restore trust in government.
3). A more equitable tax distribution.
4). A clean environmental future for our children.
5). A flourishing and prosperous middle class.

Now here's Obama:
1). No more cuts to education.
Obama has doubled-down on Bush's education plans and has backed the "race to the top" bullshit as well as the charter school movement. His policies are so against the interests of working class people when it comes to education that it was the main reason for the strike of Chicago teachers.
2). Restore trust in government.
Well this one I don't know how to answer. I already do trust this government: I trust it to be in the interests of the US ruling class and the capitalist system. But on it's own terms, again why vote for Obama who has helped disillusion a bunch of young people who hoped for some meaningful change.
3). A more equitable tax distribution.
TARP Bailout - shifting tons of taxes directly to the rich.
4). A clean environmental future for our children.
Obama has betryed his supporters on this too - not to mention his handling of the BP oil splill exposed him as a good friend to the oil industry.
5). A flourishing and prosperous middle class.
Austerity. This is a bi-partisan attack on the entire working class. Rahm Emanuel was doing Scott Walker work with the teacher's unions just this last month. Here in California, it's Jerry Brown pushing austerity.

Since both parties support the same agenda of pushing austerity onto people, accomplishing this by weakening possible democratic and union checks on this process, and ensuring US imperial dominance (specifically now by organizing against Democracy in North Africa and the Middle East)... the "realistic" thing is for working class activists and radicals to organize OUTSIDE the institutions of this bi-partisan attack. The realistic thing is for workers to develop their own independat demands and answers to the economic crisis and then learn how to fight and win them.

[#FF0000]

We are all socialists; however, we realize at this point in time, capitalism is not going anywhere. To quote Saul D Alinsky, ‎"As an organizer I start from where the world is, as it is, not as I would like it to be. That we accept the world as it is does not in any sense weaken our desire to change it into what we believe it should be—it is necessary to begin where the world is if we are going to change it to what we think it should be. That means working in the system." If we want to change anything, we realize we're going to have to work within the current system to change it.

I think you're taking some extreme liberties with that quote hahaha. Accepting the world as it is doesn't mean conceding that it won't change, which is what you guys are doing.

Like others have said, no one is saying or expects that "the revolution will happen overnight". However, that doesn't mean that working "within the system" is the way to go, let alone the only way to go. It's pretty funny, I think, that Obama of all people expressed this best when he said recently "You can't change Washington from within".

Frankly I don't know what to say to people who think that voting democrat will help us in any way or "shift the conversation left". I'd figure a cursory glance at history and what Democrats in the executive and legislature have done would be enough to dispel the myth of the "lesser evil".