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ckaihatsu
2nd June 2017, 20:00
Trump: True to His Promise of Extermination


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Chris,

Trump: True to His Promise of Extermination
May 29, 2017 on RefuseFascism.org (http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=WrtnC6TimL35n7BFurup9WBfN%2FNkIgIE)

“The other thing with the terrorists is you have to take out their families, when you get these terrorists, you have to take out their families. They care about their lives, don’t kid yourself. When they say they don’t care about their lives, you have to take out their families,” Donald Trump, December 2015

The Trump regime is sticking true to their promise and going beyond “their families” to include whole regions, escalating death tolls in Yemen, Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. What we are beginning to see is the manifestation of his commitment to “bomb the shit out of” the Middle East. He is doing precisely what he said he would do in his pledge that US “military dominance must be unquestioned, and I mean unquestioned, by anybody and everybody.” His plan for predominately Muslim nations is nothing short of extermination. It is a genocidal program and can only be stopped through independent mass resistance.

Villagers Say Yemeni Child Was Shot as He Tried to Flee Navy SEAL Raid (http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=RnH9k2eJv1SDvGSF9t5nNGBfN%2FNkIgIE)

Iona Craig at the Intercept shares eyewitness accounts from villagers that five civilians were killed (including a 15 year old) and another five were injured (including a 12 year old) in the latest U.S. Navy SEAL raid in Yemen:

“College student Murad al Adhal, 22, the elder brother of 15-year-old Abudullah who was shot and killed, described how he woke to the sound of gunfire around 1:30 a.m. as the SEALs took control of buildings on the mountainside overlooking the village.

I walked out of my house and I saw the nearby hills were filled with the American soldiers,” he said. When Apache helicopter gunships began firing into buildings, women and children started running out of their homes. “My little brother Abdullah ran for his life with the other women and children. They killed him as he was running.” Murad was shot in the leg.” Read on... (http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=rEDr2I1BQoLr8nQ%2Bv265vWBfN%2FNkIgIE)

Deadliest Month In Syria

U.S. led airstrikes continue to kill those who are fleeing, including children. Just this weekend reports have come out that the U.S. led coalition attacked a convoy of civilians killing at least 20 people trying to escape Raqqa (ISIS capital).

On Tuesday, the Observatory reported (http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=qQWx3MztX0%2Fk8fZhV9s3GmBfN%2FNkIgIE) that 235 civilians, including 44 children and 36 women, were killed in U.S. airstrikes from April 23 to May 23, making it the deadliest month on record.

Since that report the civilian death toll continues to mount, as Lauren McCauley from Common Dream recounts:

• An early morning airstrike in the town of Mayadeen on Friday killed more than “80 relatives of Islamic State (ISIS) group fighters,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told (http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=o%2B56qApRKvIKApRDYPhOoWBfN%2FNkIgIE) AFP. According to Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the monitoring group, this toll “includes 33 children. They were families seeking refuge in the town’s municipal building.

• Friday’s strike followed a coalition raid Thursday night during which 37 additional civilians were killed, including 13 children, according to the U.K.-based group. Coalition airstrikes on Wednesday killed another 15. Read more... (http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=DNTr2nMTwv%2BcWZ8h%2B1xe3mBfN%2FNkIgIE)


There is nothing humanitarian about bombing Syria and fanning the flames of a widening war. Trump’s actions here are not about protecting people but protecting empire. The Trump agenda in Syria is continued bombings of a nation at civil war where none of the warring partiers offer a future for the 23 million Syrians. This can and will only kill more innocent people, polarize the situation further and invite more intervention and weapons into the country.

Largest Single Incident of Civilian Deaths in Iraq (since 2014)

Joshua Keating in his piece More Bad News on Civilian Casualties in Iraq and Syria (http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=gGzzoM1a1CpQj1AOaZxkTJWJQAS1cCe4) reports “On Thursday, the Pentagon released the results of an investigation (http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=1BRVaUM9txsTDFpdvGSzgGBfN%2FNkIgIE), finding that more than 100 civilians were killed when the U.S. dropped a bomb on a building in Mosul, Iraq, in March, the largest single incident of civilian deaths since the campaign began in 2014…The UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights today warned (http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=WRmkdoi7mRYr1Qd%2BKa%2FV5mBfN%2FNkIgIE) that civilians are increasingly victimized by both the intensified airstrikes, and the retaliatory attacks by ISIS.”

War Is Afghanistan Is Killing Children in Record Numbers in 2017 by Ruchi Kamar (http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=FUvgoMeN5TD2%2B4B3J9krJWBfN%2FNkIgIE)

“The little girls squabbled over who would get to play with it first, and Alisina won the rights to the deadly weapon, which minutes later exploded in her hands as she attempted to lift it….According to the latest report, the first four months of 2017 have already been the worst ones yet documented for Afghan children. “[UNAMA] witnessed the highest recorded number of child civilian casualties resulting from conflict-related incidents in Afghanistan, including the highest number of children killed, for the same comparable period since the Mission began documenting cases [in 2009],” a statement by the UN agency read. Between January and April 2017, UNAMA preliminarily recorded 987 child casualties (283 deaths and 704 injured), a 21 percent increase in child deaths compared to the same period in 2016…” Read on... (http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=CAQQSt%2BceEnmTpbCUCJ%2FVJWJQAS1cCe4)

*****

The Trump/Pence Regime must be driven out before this program is further consolidated. We must do this not just for ourselves but for the people of the world, especially our Muslim sisters and brothers who sit squarely in this regime’s crosshairs. Now is the time to manifest the NO! and stand with the people of the world.

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Join us at Left Forum this weekend

World Can't Wait will be presenting three panels dealing with on-going US wars against the world and how the Trump/Pence regime is taking these to an even higher level: June 2-4 in New York City.

Stop Refugees' Desperation; Stop Bombing Their Countries
SATURDAY June 3 Session 1: 10:00 am - 11:50 am, Room 1.73
In year three of the largest world refugee crisis since WW II, The Trump/Pence regime has targeted refugees as a dangerous immigrant grouping. As was said by the presidential candidate himself: “Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.” Stepping back to the previous administrations, Bush launched an illegitimate, unjust, immoral "war on terror" to last generations. Obama expanded the targeted countries beyond Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq to Pakistan, Libya, Yemen, Somalia and Sudan. What are the connections between U.S. wars of aggression and mass migrations from war?
Moderator: Debra Sweet (Director, World Can't Wait)
Panelists: Ed Kinane (Anti-Militarist Activist), Sallie Latch (Artist, volunteer with refugees in Greece)

“War on Terror” Veterans Dialog with High School & College Students
SATURDAY June 3 Session 2: 12:00 pm - 1:50 pm, Room 1.101
Veterans with the We Are Not Your Soldiers project of World Can't Wait present what they do in high school and college classrooms where students have grown up under continual wars, know very little about them and may be considering joining the U.S. military with no first-hand knowledge of what it really entails. Iraq and Afghanistan-era veterans relate their experiences in boot camp, occupying countries and post-military, honestly and forthrightly sharing what happened to them and the people in the countries under attack by the US. Based on the class curriculum, we also can provide a historical presentation with a Vietnam military resister and/or veteran. Students are provided with information military recruiters don’t give them on PTSD, suicide, medical/psychological issues, homelessness and the danger of losing their humanity. Students freely raise issues, ideas and questions and engage in critical thinking.
Moderator: Stephanie Rugoff (Coordinator, We Are Not Your Soldiers)
Panelists: Lyle Rubin (Afghanistan veteran), Joe Urgo (Vietnam veteran)

War on the World, Trump Style
SUNDAY June 4 Session 6: 12:00 pm - 1:50 pm, Room 1.101
Donald Trump brags, stating in his inauguration speech: “We assembled here today are issuing a new decree to be heard in every city, in every foreign capital and in every hall of power. From this day forward, a new vision will govern our land. From this day forward, it's going to be only America first -- America first.” He says he will "fill up" Guantánamo with "bad guys" and may direct the military to openly torture. He promises HUGE increases in military spending, and expansion of the military. Since Trump has been Commander in Chief civilian casualties have spiked. And now, Trump is threatening North Korea, and the entire planet, with nuclear war. How should we respond and resist?
Moderator: Debra Sweet (Director, World Can't Wait)
Panelists: Ed Kinane (Anti-Militarist Activist), Nick Mottern (Coordinator, KnowDrones.com), Elsa Rassbach (German-American co-founder German Drone Campaign)

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Support The Witness Against Torture campaign: #ForeverHumanBeings #41menatGitmo to Close Guantanamo Forever

On the eve of Ramadan, May 26, Witness Against Torture began its #ForeverHumanBeings & #41MenAtGitmo campaign, which is dedicated to renewing calls to close Guantanamo prison as well as uplifting the stories of the 41 men who remain imprisoned behind its walls. Video on the first prisoner profile – Sufyian Barhoumi – (http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=IMIT8Yd37K9GAzZOZ7WMRGBfN%2FNkIgIE) was released in collaboration with the Center for Constitutional Rights.

We unite with WAT's decision to demand full closure of the torture center at Guantanamo, and the removal of both "cleared" prisoners and the small number the U.S. says they will charge. Follow Witness Against Torture's campaign on witnesstorture.com (http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=6rVWDMttIZGCgi5GoPMNAmBfN%2FNkIgIE) where you can sign up to be part of the ongoing fast, or on Facebook (http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=LK%2BYaT6K5mrlJLqUDMTB8mBfN%2FNkIgIE) or Twitter (http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=AvcigM3w717K%2F25hx6w9JmBfN%2FNkIgIE)

Day 5: #41menatGitmo (http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=MF7nCqHesUDCqyNxy%2FjGyGBfN%2FNkIgIE) #foreverhumanbeings (http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=%2FEnXrMGbKVk5LYhBBzviAGBfN%2FNkIgIE)
Muieen Adeen al Sattar (ISN309), a 41 year old man of unclear national origins, is cleared for release, but remains held. The Guantanamo Review Task Force in January 2010 recommended him for transfer. He has been held for 15 years 3 months. Andy Worthington has described the circumstances surrounding his capture. “[Al Sattar’s] Unclassified Summary ...states that he “has a Pakistani passport and originally went to Pakistan on vacation in September 2001.” All that is known of this man — listed by the US authorities as Muieen A Deen Jamal A Deen Abd Al Fusal Abd Al Sattar — is contained in this slim document, released in September 2007, but it makes clear that al-Sattar taught at the Private Holy Koran School in Mecca, that he paid for his own travel, that he was “convinced by a friend to go to Afghanistan and teach the Five Pillars of Islam,” and that he “thought if he traveled to Afghanistan that he would get credit from God and that, since the trip was only going to be for a week, there would be no harm in going.”

See further details on andyworthington.co.uk (http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=GtsMlw%2Bjgl07Q%2BRI%2FxZqjmBfN%2FNkIgIE)

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dbcooper
3rd June 2017, 11:56
Isn't this the conference that was going to host a panel discussion on how transgenderism is a conspiracy created by pharmaceutical companies to sell hormones? I'm only asking because it seems rather out of place to promote such an event on a website that purports to be of the revolutionary left, not the tin foil hat right...

ckaihatsu
3rd June 2017, 12:23
Isn't this the conference that was going to host a panel discussion on how transgenderism is a conspiracy created by pharmaceutical companies to sell hormones? I'm only asking because it seems rather out of place to promote such an event on a website that purports to be of the revolutionary left, not the tin foil hat right...


Dunno. Maybe check their conference calendar or something....

dbcooper
3rd June 2017, 13:49
I was being rhetorical, because they absolutely were until people put a stop to it. Nice dodge tho.

ckaihatsu
3rd June 2017, 13:58
I was being rhetorical, because they absolutely were until people put a stop to it. Nice dodge tho.


Well, maybe next time put all that info out there initially instead of being 'rhetorical' and coy.

dbcooper
3rd June 2017, 14:10
Well, maybe next time put all that info out there initially instead of being 'rhetorical' and coy.
No?

ckaihatsu
3rd June 2017, 14:12
No?


You sound uncertain.

dbcooper
3rd June 2017, 14:19
You sound uncertain.
Trust me, I'm am certain?

ckaihatsu
3rd June 2017, 14:43
Trust me, I'm am certain?


You're not communicating it that way because you're using question marks at the end of your statements.





Well, maybe next time put all that info out there initially instead of being 'rhetorical' and coy.


I'm saying that you're being unnecessarily circuitous -- it really smacks of trying to play 'gotcha'-type games ('one-upmanship').

dbcooper
3rd June 2017, 15:21
You're not communicating it that way because you're using question marks at the end of your statements.

I'm sorry?


I'm saying that you're being unnecessarily circuitous -- it really smacks of trying to play 'gotcha'-type games ('one-upmanship').

Is not being down with transphobia as something that calls itself "Left" Forum a "gotcha-type game"? Cause I call it the bare-minimum.

willowtooth
3rd June 2017, 16:51
didn't refusefascism get hacked and like everyone who signed their petitions got doxxed by 4chan?

ckaihatsu
3rd June 2017, 17:15
Is not being down with transphobia as something that calls itself "Left" Forum a "gotcha-type game"? Cause I call it the bare-minimum.


Hey, I *agree* with you on the politics -- what we've just been talking about, though, is your own method / way of *introducing* this kind of information to the forum. No biggie, though -- whatever.

dbcooper
3rd June 2017, 21:11
No biggie, though -- whatever.

But you keep bringing it up

ckaihatsu
4th June 2017, 12:23
But you keep bringing it up


I'll let it drop if you're done with this as well.

Radical Atom
5th June 2017, 09:53
Isn't this the conference that was going to host a panel discussion on how transgenderism is a conspiracy created by pharmaceutical companies to sell hormones?

The description of the panel is quite excessively polemicist and does end up jumping the shark, no doubt about that. However, there is no denying nor should be in any way controversial to say that the plastic surgery industry has more money to make from telling people with dysphoria that they have to change and mutilate their bodies in order to conform to stereotypical gender roles or they'll never be happy rather than actually helping them and offering them counseling so they can see that gender is an oppressive social construct that they don't have to conform to and that there's nothing wrong with being who and how they are. Hell! That's what plastic surgery is all about! Exploiting people's insecurities and suffering. Putting into their heads that their bodies have to be exactly how society tells them they have to be instead of telling them that those standards are outrageously unrealistic, false and unhealthy. It's just capitalists being capitalists, brainwashing people into wanting shit they don’t really need.
No "evuul conspiracy" is necessary for explanation, that industry found a new juicy cow and they are going to milk it.
I don't see, on the other hand, how being at least somewhat suspicious (not paranoid) of this new trend rich capitalists shoving money causes like BLM, etc. could be considered problematic.

There's also no denying that a very creepy, misogynistic and homophobic vibe is coming from trans activism. Things such as:


Women not being able to talk about their biology (menstruation, pregnancy, cancer tied to women’s biology, etc.) in their own spaces because trans activists say they feel excluded and threatened by talking about women’s biology. Or women being told that they should stop saying menstruation is women's issue. WHAT. THE. FUCK.
The disgustingly misogynistic and homophobic notion of “cis privilege” and the insistence that “misgendering” is "literal violence” and “literally killing” trans people while in the real world women are beaten, raped, murdered and exploited on a daily basis and homosexuals are being constantly brutalized and killed for the sole reason of being homosexual, something which in some countries is still sanctioned and carried on by the state.
Accusations of bisexuality of being "transphobic" because "it implies there are two genders" (missing the point that gender and sex are not the same, and even then the world doesn't owe a shagging to anyone”).
Disgusting homophobic concepts like the "cotton ceiling”, basically trans male "lesbians" accuse lesbians of "transphobia" or having a "vagina fetish" for not wanting to suck their dicks.
Women's library of Vancouver being attacked and vandalized by queer “activists” and afterwards being told to remove certain books (all feminist literature) from the shelves.
Trans activists saying that gay men are so ‘as consolation price for not being able to be a woman’.
A mother being attacked by trans activists for saying that her daughter who is a tomboy doesn’t have to conform to feminine gender stereotypes to be a girl.
And please, can we all agree, that kids (who can’t really consent to anything) should be left alone and be let to be kids?


Yes, the panel does go overboard and hurts its own credibility with the “1% are planning a coup against gays” thing but, frankly, none of this would have escalated to this point if feminists, mainly women, hadn’t been targetted, bullied, attacked, silenced, doxxed, threatened, gaslighted and had their careers in risk of jeopardy for critiquing gender politics and queer theory. Daily reminder: not every feminist is a po-mo idpol Butlerite.
So while I disagree with overall tone and the delving into conspiratorial thinking, I can somewhat understand where this entrenchment is coming from: There's a very problematic undercurrent of homophobia and misogyny in the trans activist movement, and this is the truth that risks getting lost behind the conspiranoid crap.
There is obviously a problem which affects various groups, so why then, on a left forum no less, can't we hold trans activists to the same standards as everyone else? Why should women and homosexuals be silenced and excluded for talking about something that affects them? (Leaving aside the conspiranoid part, which in my opinion is muddying the waters and obscuring something which is more complicated than that)
Seriously, for all the things to criticize from radical feminists, their critique of gender politics and queer theory usually isn’t one of them.
If these people would have ended up talking shit they ought to be confronted about it and brutally criticized for it. Silencing them before they even say anything? Before we even know if they are only spouting crap or not? Why? As I said some points are rather truthful and rather necessary to be touched upon. What are you so afraid of?


A website that purports to be of the revolutionary left, not the tin foil hat right...
Not tin foil hat right, and not liberal fauxminist 'bury your head in the sand' either. This conflict should have been confronted before and yet it keeps getting swept under the rug, better late than never I guess.

ckaihatsu
5th June 2017, 15:11
There's also no denying that a very creepy, misogynistic and homophobic vibe is coming from trans activism. Things such as:


What *I'm* seeing here, from this description, is the 'dark' / *deleterious* side of identity politics -- if identity politics *is* to be practiced (not that it *should* be preferred over full-blown class-*revolutionary* theory), it certainly shouldn't be done on such a sectarian basis. The phenomenon described basically amounts to *infighting* among social-minority groups based on an insular, us-first, gender-paradigm mindset / worldview -- it's both sad and tragic, and unfortunately falls right into the right-wing portrayal of social-minority 'special interests' by inherently favoring a framework of social micro-subdivisions by gender identity, over class.

ckaihatsu
12th June 2017, 13:38
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/06/12/left-j12.html


Demoralization and opportunism reign at annual Left Forum in New York City

By Fred Mazelis

12 June 2017

The Left Forum, the annual conference of assorted left Democrats, middle class protesters, academics, Stalinists, ex-Trotskyists and remnants of the 1960s counterculture and protest politics, held its meeting this year from June 2-4. The atmosphere at the New York City event was one of demoralization and political opportunism.

The conference saw a huge falloff in attendance this year. Many of the panel sessions struggled to gather an audience of even 15 or 20. The evening plenary sessions were attended by no more than several hundred, in an auditorium that was more than half-empty. This is all the more significant because it stands in such sharp contrast to the widespread anger following the electoral victory and inauguration of Donald Trump as US president.

The layers that predominate at the forum are in the orbit of the Democratic Party and quite close to the trade union apparatus, and are for that very reason very far indeed from the masses of working people. Despite occasional rhetorical references to socialism, the vast majority of participants advocate either transforming the Democratic Party, pressuring it to move to the left, or, if the Democrats cannot be rescued, transferring their support to a third capitalist party such as the Greens or another reformist alternative.

http://www.wsws.org/asset/3ef0a77e-6fa3-4bb3-b5be-138d49907a3J/image.jpg?rendition=image240
Christian Parenti at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival

One of the panels, for instance, was sponsored by “Draft Bernie for a People’s Party.” Several were under the auspices of the Green Party. Others pointed to Castroism, Hugo Chavez and various forms of Stalinism as the alternative to 21st century capitalism. Also playing a role in the weekend’s events were representatives of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), which has for decades occupied a position as part of the “left” inside the Democratic Party, and Socialist Alternative and the International Socialist Organization (ISO), backers of Bernie Sanders and the Greens.

The panel on “Socialists and Greens in the ballot box and in the streets” was expressive of the general politics that dominated. It featured six speakers and an audience that numbered barely 20, mostly older veterans of middle class protest. The answer to the question of how to fight Trump from all of the panelists, representing the Greens and various pseudo-left tendencies, was a “broad left” regroupment.

Adrian Boutureira of the Greens began with a question: “Can the Left create a broad front, as has happened across the world? ...We either figure something out or we’re not going to survive.”

Boutureira pointed to Podemos in Spain as an example. Later he referred in passing to developments in Latin America. He said nothing at all about the record of various nationalist regimes in Latin America, including those of the Workers Party in Brazil, Kirchner in Argentina, and Chavez and Maduro in Venezuela.

Boutureira also was silent on the bitter experiences of the Greek working class with the vicious austerity policies of the Syriza government. Only two years ago, the Left Forum was dominated by delirious enthusiasm for the newly-elected government headed by Alexis Tsipras, which was hailed as the model for a rejuvenated socialist movement. Within weeks, Syriza had ignored the results of a referendum, which it had itself organized, in order to surrender to the dictates of the IMF and the World Bank.

Also speaking at this session was Ajamu Baraka, last year’s vice-presidential candidate of the Greens on the ticket headed by Jill Stein, and representatives of Socialist Alternative and the ISO.

Todd Chretien of the ISO boasted of his longtime association with the Greens, going back to the its electoral successes in 2000 and subsequent years, when it won certain local offices in northern California. Unfortunately, according to Chretien, “many Greens rejoined the Democrats.”

Whether intentionally or not, Chretien had put his finger on the fundamental class issue in the relationship between the ISO and the Greens. The ISO’s support for the Greens is another means of opposing independent working class political action. There is no fundamental class difference between the Greens and the Democrats, and the role of the ISO is to cover up this essential reality, working to sabotage the political education of the most advanced workers and youth.

Particularly noteworthy in this panel discussion was the absence of any mention of the growing danger of war. The speakers had little to say on any political issues, but the omission of the steadily growing inter-imperialist tensions as well as the threats against Russia and China, both nuclear-armed powers, was especially revealing.

The final plenary session of the Left Forum was chaired by Bhaskar Sunkara, the editor of Jacobin magazine, the “left” publication that was founded several years ago and whose respectability in ruling class circles is attested to by flattering profiles in the New York Times and elsewhere.

As it turned out, this session perfectly summed up the combination of demoralization and opportunism that pervaded the weekend. The speakers included journalist Christian Parenti, economist Richard Wolff, DSA spokesperson Tascha Van Auken, and Karina Garcia, a representative of the pro-Stalinist Party for Liberation and Socialism.

In a panel concluding the entire affair, there was absolutely no discussion of the urgent political situation that is taking shape only months after the inauguration of Donald Trump: the escalating attacks on the working class, the signs of deepening class struggle internationally, the raging factional war within the US ruling class, in which the Democrats have attacked Trump for being too “soft” on Russia.

http://www.wsws.org/asset/4f759982-9794-4604-8ccd-361681cc60bN/image.jpg?rendition=image480
Bhaskar Sunkara

Sunkara, who is also a member of the DSA, opened this session by declaring that, “a lot of the old debates…[like] reform or revolution…are less relevant today.” As both Sunkara and the rest of the panelists made clear, this was because, according to them, revolution is unthinkable and impossible.

Conducting himself at times more like an ill-equipped late-night television host than the editor of a supposedly socialist publication, Sunkara closed the proceedings with two questions that elicited some revealing answers.

“Is there a route to transforming the Democratic Party?” he asked, including running in primary elections of this party of American imperialism. Most of the speakers replied enthusiastically in the affirmative. “The Democratic Party at the local level is open to being taken over or at least heavily influenced,” Parenti declared.

Van Auken, who worked on both the Obama and Sanders campaigns, bragged that one DSA member is running in the Democratic primary this year in New York, and another as a Green Party candidate. Wolff opened with what sounded at first like an angry reply. “I don’t care about the Democratic Party one way or another,” he said—and then immediately explained, “If the opportunity arises to do something, fine.”

On the question of socialism, Van Auken said that she “doesn’t identify with anything… I don’t define myself as a Democrat, I don’t define myself as anything.” She added, “Having any label bothers me, because I like to be able to just see what people have to say.” This declaration of a principled lack of principles in fact translates into support for capitalism and the Democratic Party, which is the politics of the DSA.

http://www.wsws.org/asset/f0b5c89b-818e-43e2-b1e0-8871df92ee8H/image.jpg?rendition=image480
Richard D. Wolff in 2015

Garcia was the only speaker who declared, demagogically, that “the Democratic Party are not our friends.” She said nothing about the role of Bernie Sanders, however. She later went on to make clear that her demagogy was empty, saying in response to a question about whether the PSL would support people running as Democrats, “We want to fight wherever the fighters are.” She then went on to credit Sanders for making it a lot easier to discuss socialism. The rest of the panelists agreed that, as one put it, “Bernie opened up the door.”

The reality is that Sanders’ role has been to try to capture the explosive anger among millions of workers and youth, and channel it back into the two-party capitalist system. The various tendencies and organizations represented at the Left Forum are performing, each in their own way, the same function.

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