The Will of the People Was NOT Expressed...

[Andrei Kuznetsov]

NO NO NO!
The Will of the People Was NOT Expressed In This Election

Revolutionary Worker #1258, November 14, 2004, posted at http://rwor.org


Stunned anguish ... bitter disgust ... even despair. We try to find the words and we can’t.

And yes, it is as bad as you think. Almost certainly, it is worse.

On November 3rd, George Bush called up the newly elected Republican senators who believe in such things as the death penalty for abortion providers and banning gays from teaching and said: “It’s time to get the job done.” Capitalism personified, Bush told the press “Let me put it to you this way: I earned political capital in the campaign and now I intend to spend it”. He is full of himself—on a mission to take this whole nightmare to an even more intense, more repressive level.

If ever there was a leader who should be thoroughly rejected, if ever there was a time for a country to become politically ungovernable, if ever there was an empire that should be stopped dead in its tracks and prevented from shaping the future of the planet—that leader, that country, that empire is right before us. If ever there was a time when millions need to act on their nagging, deep-gut feeling that something is terribly and radically wrong—that time is NOW.

Bush crows that he is backed by the will of the people. Bull! What will of the people—when there was an entire campaign of disenfranchisement and intimidation directed against Black people and immigrants from Ohio to Arizona, from Florida to Mississippi?! What will of the people—when we may never be able to say what the easily-rigged electronic voting machines really recorded? What will of the people—when people were never given the chance to even hear (let alone vote on) a clear strong voice against the war, against the repression, and against the Dark Ages mind-set taking over this country? And where were the voices of people from Gaza to Falluja, Kathmandu to Korea who are the most victimized by this Bush madness? Where were the voices of the people of the majority of the planet who bitterly oppose the war on Iraq? The fact is that the will of the people was NOT expressed in this election!

True, Bush did get tens of millions of people to support him with eyes wide shut. That was and is scary—and we’ll speak to what’s behind that later. But Kerry never really went after Bush, and the whole way that things got confined to the terms of “who would be the better commander-in-chief” was loaded against the people from the gitgo. And now Kerry talks to us about “letting the healing begin?” We don’t think so.

Yes, people who hate what Bush stands for have to ask ourselves a hard question, but that question is this: how did we get to this place where the choices, the limits and the framework we are supposed to accept are marked, on one end by the “Republi-fascists” who are clearly fascist and openly imperialist—and on the other by the “Republi-crats”, who confine themselves to a few petty amendments and even to outrageous talk of healing?

And now what? Do we just accept this as the will of the people and try to find our place somewhere within these new norms?

No, no, NO! This has proven disastrous and we have to change course NOW. We have to build a fierce resistance based on what is truly just.... continue this article @ http://rwor.org/a/1258/elections-editorial.htm

[flyby]

This is a very powerful and very correct statement.

I have been circulating it (both online and as a leaflet!!)


http://rwor.org/a/special_postings/willofpeople.pdf

[Severian]

I'd say this reflects how ultraleftism is just another side of the coin from reformism. Backhanded support from the "Revolutionary Communist" Party to the Democrats.

"Stunned anguish ... bitter disgust ... even despair."....because one capitalist party defeated another in an election? So what?

The problem with Kerry is that "he didn't really go after Bush?" And the criticism of the Democrats is that they "confine themselves to a few petty amendments and even to outrageous talk of healing?" - i.e. that they are insufficiently militant in their family squabble with the Republicans.

This whole thing coulda been written by some left-liberal like Michael Moore, who just demands that the Democrats "really" fight for their liberal imperialist program. Probably the RCP thinks its just trying to make a sympathetic approach to appointed Democratic voters, but this kind of adaptation can easily become real, not just feigned, as members are recruited and educated in the spirit of this kind of liberal propaganda. The mask can easily become the face.

For a communist, neither party is preferable - both are parties of war, repression, and unionbusting, with merely tactical disagreements over how best to screw working people. We have no reason to despair when one or the other wins an election, nor to wish that one would fight harder against the other.

On the contrary, the increasing bitterness of the conflicts in bourgeois politics serves to obscure real issues, make civil discussion harder, and undermine democratic rights.

And incidentally, working people who vote Republican are not necessarily less likely than those who vote Democratic to participate in labor struggles and other fights for their rights.

[flyby]

I will ignore the nasty tone of severian's post ("ultraleftism" blah blah blah) and dig into its substantive points.

Severian quotes the RW article (which starts) "Stunned anguish ... bitter disgust ... even despair."

And then he/she writes: "because one capitalist party defeated another in an election? So what?a"

Well lets dig into it. Is there angush, disgust and despair broadly over Bush' victory? Yes. (Do you not see that?)

Why? Because many people (millions in fact) hoped that voting for Kerry would stop the horrible press for war, expansion, and domestic repression.

And they were wrong, and they are now facing disillusionment, and some difficult political challenges.

They are facing the question "Now What??" And they have a deep sense that the Democrats were not serious about fighting Bush, or opposing the war, or contesting the direction of things. Are they wrong? No. The Democrats (including Kerry) were deliberately close to Bush's program on many things.

Now, let me deal with your remark "so what?"

There are two answers;

The turmoil among democratic voters is very important, because many of them need to be won to more radical politics -- if there is going to be a revolutionary movement of any significance in the U.S. So their turmoil is significant, important and needs to be addressed (as the RCP leaflet does).

On the other hand, Serivian's "So what?" seems to imply that we are simply facing "business as usual" and that nothing significant, or urgent is happening.

There i disagree. Severian writes: "Probably the RCP thinks its just trying to make a sympathetic approach to appointed Democratic voters, but this kind of adaptation can easily become real, not just feigned."

Actuially that sympathy is real, not feigned. I share many of their horrors over the war, over the undermining of basic legal protections, over the rise of surveillance, over the raw racism of the current government. And i think the sense (among millions of people) that there are dangerous and horrifying changes happening is a correct sense. And one we should unite with, and which we should speak to from a revolutionary position.

These socalled "appointed Democratic voters" include most Black people, most poor people, most working people. Are you seriously implying you have no sympathy for their concerns and frustrations? Do you consider them some kind of enemy that should be talked to harshly and in a hostile way?

Who do you expect to make the revolution? How do you expect to speak to the millions of people who are not yet revolutionary, but who can become revolutionary?

And if they don't learn from their awful experiences with the Democratic imperialists (and other political experiences in the real world) how do you expect them to move to a revolutoinary position ? It seems obvious that revolutionary communism is not the first thing people will grab for.

Then Serivian says something I agree with: he/she argues that you can't recruit or educate communists in a spirit of liberalism.

I think this is very true. Chairman avakian has been pointing out that we need a "solid core with a lot of elasticity." This concept has many applications (now and in the longer struggle under socialism for communist changes) -- but at its heart it means that we need both a leading, clear, hard communist leadership and core -- that knows it is communist and knows what communism is. And that we also need broad alliances, a long-term and living dialogue and relationship with broad forces that will not immediately or soon become fully communist, but who we need to work with for each step forward toward communist revolution.

We need to be both deeply communist, and also able to deeply and creatively unite with people who are not yet communists -- on a principled and clearcut basis (not on a liberal basis).

Serivian writes: "For a communist, neither party is preferable - both are parties of war, repression, and unionbusting, with merely tactical disagreements over how best to screw working people. We have no reason to despair when one or the other wins an election, nor to wish that one would fight harder against the other."

There is much truth there. And these are truths that need to be expressed and fought for. The RCP did not (itself) have dispair over the Bush victory, but was speaking to those who do (in order to lead them to abandon despair and find new ways to struggle.)

Serivian writes: "On the contrary, the increasing bitterness of the conflicts in bourgeois politics serves to obscure real issues, make civil discussion harder, and undermine democratic rights.'

I don't think it is the bitterness of inner-bourgeois conflict that undermines democratic rights -- but the very real program that is deciding the ruling class agenda -- and at this moment it is clearly the aggressive program most clearly represented by the Bush crew and their support aparatus.

Ruling classes at times adopt particular and extreme programs. They change and even shed previous "forms of rule."

To put it in a nutshell: there is a difference between bourgeois democracy and fascism.

These two forms of rule are the same in that they are both capitalist. The class in power doesn't change. In imperialist countries, the drive to expand and dominate doesnt' change (and even under bourgeois democracy, the imperialists impose fascism routinely in countries they dominate.)

But it does make a difference (to the people, to the proletariat, to the oppressed and to progressive folks) whether the state goes fascist or not.

It makes a difference because the struggle to prepare revolution is made much more difficult under fascism (which is one of the intentions behind going fascist.)

And it makes a difference because people will resist (and must resist) and that process gives rise to fertile ground for revolutionary preparations.

So it is necessary to fight moves toward fascism, without (ironically) upholding or glorifying bourgeois democracy.

It is true that there have always been fascist elements in the U.S. powerstructure (mccarthy, J Edgar Hoover, etc.) But there are differences now:

They have launched a historic global gamble and it has intense consequences (including on how they rule internally).

Power has never been so closely held by their most reactioanry forces (senate, supreme court, white house and military officer corps).

they have now spent over two decades training and mobilizing a significant fascist social base (rooted in the religious right) in a way that is new, and relentless.

They are going for power and for "transforming" the U.S. And they expect to hold power for a generation or two unchallenged.

And there are two errors here: one is pooh-poohing the difference (or impact) of fascist measures (like the suspention of habeas corpus, the tightening of allowable freedoms of press, the freedom to seize indymedia servers, the expanded freedom to spy-surveill-infiltrate, the freedom to have preventive detention etc.)

It is real, and it has to be fought.

The other is acting like bourgeois democracy is freedom, is our goal, is our framework. As if the Democrats are an opposition that represents some real alternative and some real center for fighting this whole agenda -- which they don't.

To anyone reading this, let me put it sharply:

If you don't think the U.S. is changing fundamentally, you aren't paying attention.

If you think these times are "just more of the same" you need to take a closer look.

If you think the answer is voting for kerry, you have capitulated to the system.

If you think it doesn't matter what we do, you have given up.

If you think the only alternative is "going underground" or having a thirty-year-plan-for-doing-nothing, you have neutralized yourself and are calling for others to neutralize themselves.


There is a sharp need for clarity, communist politics and a fiece sense of urgency.

This is not business as usual.

We need to prepare ground and organize forces for revolution -- while uniting broadly to oppose, expose and beat back the Bush agenda.

We need to develop a hard revolutionary core, and a broad set of alliances and relationships that go far beyond "the usual left" circles.

finally, Chairman Avakian has written some rather startling and provocative analyses of all this that have recently run in the Revolutionary worker (http://rwor.org)


I suggest you check them out.... starting with this one, written during the closing period of the Clinton Years:

http://rwor.org/a/1255/avakian_clinton_rig..._conspiracy.htm (http://rwor.org/a/1255/avakian_clinton_right_wing_conspiracy.htm)

it is called "The Truth About Right-Wing Conspiracy…And Why Clinton and the Democrats Are No Answer" (which from the start confirms that the RCP is not calling for tailing or supporting the Democrats, but of building a revolutionary movement under current conditions, and through the course of sharp struggle against the plans and program of the U.S. ruling class.)

[flyby]

On a secondary point:

Severian writes: "And incidentally, working people who vote Republican are not necessarily less likely than those who vote Democratic to participate in labor struggles and other fights for their rights."

This is an interesting claim.

I think we could say this: Those working people who support the war, who embrace the rightwing agenda, who are attracted to fundamentalist and Christian Fascist ideas, are dangerously confused and reactionary.

As Andrei's RW post said: "Bush did get tens of millions of people to support him with eyes wide shut." How true.

We can and should plan to win them over (and should not write them off in some flip and shortsighted way).

As the RCP leaflet says: "And no, we cannot either hope this will go away or seek “common ground” with this poison—we must “stage an intervention” with these people and directly take on this hurtful and lunatic mindset they have gotten caught up in and are trying to force on all of society. And if we do sharply take on this madness, we can “peel off” some of these people from the Bush bunch. Many of them have sons and daughters killing and dying in Iraq; many of them are victims of the “lean and mean” capitalism represented by Bush (and Kerry for that matter); many, especially women, are still trapped in social relations that scar their spirit and their lives; and whatever solace they find in this Christian fascism cannot ultimately transcend all that. This program of Bush’s is not ending—he is immediately going to try to escalate the war in Iraq in a terribly bloody way, and plan for further aggression. He is going to try to pass a heavier version of the Patriot Act. He is going to further cut the programs people desperately depend on and drive them to the “charity” of the churches."

In other words these people are clearly in a reactionary bag -- they should not be written off.

But it seems odd to me to suggest (as Serivian seems to) that this reactionary politics doesn't matter, because they may or may not be involved in some spontaneous economic struggles (as teamsters, or coal miners or whatever.)

Is that what matters? Trade union struggles? While forces are stepping out to support this war, and future wars? While they are endorsing the ban on abortion and the criminalizing of gay marriage? And opposing civil rights, affirmative action, language equality and basic constitutional guarantees against spying and searches?

What are the battles that are shaping our future, and building a revolutionary people? Not the occasional teamster strike, but exactly the issues we are discussing: war, the liberation of women, the struggle of Black people, the issue of what the legal and cultural norms of the future society will be, the issue of U.S. world domination and so on.

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 13 2004, 04:01 PM
Well lets dig into it. Is there angush, disgust and despair broadly over Bush' victory? Yes. (Do you not see that?)

Why? Because many people (millions in fact) hoped that voting for Kerry would stop the horrible press for war, expansion, and domestic repression.

And they were wrong, and they are now facing disillusionment, and some difficult political challenges.
Yes, the millions of diappointed liberals were - and are - wrong. And the RW editors are wrong for agreeing with this sentiment.

There is nothing progressive about this liberal despair; as this article from the Militant correctly points out, (http://www.themilitant.com/2004/6843/684302.html) it is fueled by middle-class contempt for working people.


On the other hand, Serivian's "So what?" seems to imply that we are simply facing "business as usual" and that nothing significant, or urgent is happening.


On the contrary. We are facing a greatly intensified number of imperialist wars, as the U.S. ruling class gets over its illusions and realizes it'll take more, not fewer wars to police the world after the end of the "Cold War." Accompanying this will be intensifying attacks on our democratic rights, unions, the social wage, etc., as the ruling class looks for a way out of its long-term economic problems.

This will be true regardless of which party is in office. Both parties agree with the post-Sept. 11 course of the Bush administration. Kerry simply argued that he could carry it out more effectively.

Only one major figure in capitalist politics advocates a different course than this; Patrick Buchanan. Clearly not an improvement over Bush either, as his goal is to build a fascist movement which will "take back" the country in a "culture war".


These socalled "appointed Democratic voters" include most Black people, most poor people, most working people. Are you seriously implying you have no sympathy for their concerns and frustrations? Do you consider them some kind of enemy that should be talked to harshly and in a hostile way?

Typo; should have been "disappointed."

In reality, most working people don't vote; in most elections anyway; they are far less likely to vote than middle-class professionals, etc.

Plenty of workers vote Republican, or vote for each party at different times, depending on who they hope will lead to better economic times, get into fewer wars, or generally screw us a little less.

Some of my coworkers and other working people I know voted Democratic and are unhappy Bush lost (others voted for Bush), but I haven't seen anyone sunk in the depths of move-to-Canada despair now common among middle-class liberals....or expressed in the RW editorial. In reality, most working people have fewer illusions in any capitalist party than are reflected in that editorial....and unlike the RCP, they don't claim to be communist.

I expressed myself rather sharply on the RW editorial because this is a group that always poses as super-revolutionary, showing its true colors on this occassion.

In content, however, rather than tone, I would tell anyone the same: that Kerry is no better than Bush, and there is no good reason to be unhappy over his loss. You seem to disagree, but you haven't been able to give such a reason either.


To put it in a nutshell: there is a difference between bourgeois democracy and fascism.

Of course. And if you knew what the difference was, you'd know that both Kerry and Bush represent bourgeois democracy - which also involves political repression against working people, and whenever possible chipping away at the democratic rights we have won in struggle.

The main political figure representing a potential fascist movement in this country is Patrick Buchanan. Unlike Kerry, he advocates an "America First" set of foreign and domestic policies that are different from Bush's.

Many of the worst repressive measures of the Bush administration, including many of the detentions and deportations of Arab and other immigrants, have in fact been carried out under Clinton-era legislation, such as the 1998 Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, rather than the PATRIOT Act exclusively blamed by liberals. For that matter, Democrats and even the ACLU seek only to fine-tune some of the PATRIOT Act, not abolish it.

It was also Clinton who initiated plans for a North American military command, which now coordinates the operations of the military on U.S. soil.

As I said, both parties are parties of repression as well as war, unionbusting, and slashing the social wage. You keep saying you don't support the Democrats, but in that case why are you unhappy when they lose an election? If it's bad for Democrats to lose an election, the only logical conclusion is to vote for them.

The RCP is following in the tradition a tradition the CPUSA started in the 30s here. The CPUSA pretended to run its own candidate, and didn't openly endorse Roosevelt. But their slogan was "Landon must be defeated at all costs" (or whoever the Republican candidate was any particular year.) Logically, if Landon must be defeated at all costs, you gotta vote for the Democrats, and that's the conclusion CP supporters drew and were supposed to draw.

Labelling various figures as "fascist" is also an old CPUSA trick. Not only does it help scare people into lesser-evil reformism, but it also carries the "boy who cried wolf" problem. When an actual fascist danger emerges, its harder to be taken seriously if you've been labelling everyone and his fairy godmother as the next American Hitler.

Incidentally, lesser-evil politics would be wrong even if Bush was a fascist leader; social democrats and others voted for Hindenburg as a lesser evil to try to stop Hitler, and it didn't work. Hindenburg won the election all right, then turned around and appointed Hitler as his chancellor (prime minister, basically).

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 13 2004, 04:14 PM
On a secondary point:

Severian writes: "And incidentally, working people who vote Republican are not necessarily less likely than those who vote Democratic to participate in labor struggles and other fights for their rights."

This is an interesting claim.

I think we could say this: Those working people who support the war, who embrace the rightwing agenda, who are attracted to fundamentalist and Christian Fascist ideas, are dangerously confused and reactionary.
Are you assuming that's an accurate description of working people who vote Republican? 'Cause it isn't.

I don't know where you're from, but I live in Alabama and have talked politics with plenty of actual, flesh-and-blood workers who vote Republican. They're not always more pro-war, for example: during Clinton's war in Yugoslavia it was the more Republican-leaning workers who were more likely to oppose it. A number of them said - accurately as far as it goes - that it was Democratic presidents who started most of the major U.S. wars of the 20th century and that the Democratic Party was a warmongering party. Which it is, of course, but what they leave out is that the Republicans are too....

I suppose this is as good a time as any to comment on a theme of your posts: the ultrarightist wing of the Republican party, which you sometimes describe as "fascist" - and elements of it are indeed tinged with fascism.

Bush has actually tended to reduce the influence of this wing in the Republican party and to deemphasize its culture-war or "social conservative" issues compared to past Republican presidents. He's tended to downplay his opposition to abortion, gave only token support to a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, advocated weakening rather than abolishing affirmative action, etc.

Most recently, Bush expressed willingness to accept "civil unions" for gay couples - putting him close to Kerry's position, since Kerry supports civil unions but opposes gay marriage. Again, Bush is a bourgeois-democratic political figure, not a fascist or semi-fascist or whatever.



Is that what matters? Trade union struggles?

And other struggles where working people fight for their rights, I said. You've had to ignore that in an effort to paint me as some kind of pure-and-simple trade-unionism advocate.

But trade union struggles are more important than bourgeois elections, you betcha. Any action by working people themselves is more important than anything that involves hoping that someone else will liberate us. "The emancipation of the working class can only be the action of the workers themselves."

That you don't understand this is a reflection of how little the middle-class left has to do with working people.


While forces are stepping out to support this war, and future wars?

Forces including Kerry.


While they are endorsing the ban on abortion and the criminalizing of gay marriage?

Kerry supports a ban on "partial-birth abortions" as long as it contains a "life and health" exception. Note that these laws are so vague they could apply to many abortion procedures. He supports criminalizing gay marriage, as did Clinton, who signed the "Defense of Marriage Act."

Wacky to hear about this in defense of an RCP statement, BTW; the record of Mao and Stalin on abortion and gay rights is far worse than Bush's.


And opposing civil rights, affirmative action, language equality and basic constitutional guarantees against spying and searches?

As Kerry does. Ahem. Well, he doesn't outright oppose affirmative action, but neither does Bush; both oppose quotas and favor weakening it - as Clinton put it "mend it don't end it."

But somehow we're supposed to be upset Kerry lost.

One important reactionary move you leave out is the growing assault on the social wage; Social Security retirement is the likely next target. It will very possibly be gutted in order to save it, as someone said about some village in Vietnam.

It was Clinton, of course, who opened this up by abolishing "welfare as we know it" - AFDC, one of the 4 pillars of the 1936 Social Security act. Reagan railed against it, but it took Clinton to actually do something.

The force behind all these reactionary moves is not the voting base of the Republican Party, without distinction of class. It is the capitalist class, both Republican and Democratic.

The force that will put a stop to them is not the voting base of the Democratic Party. It is the working class, including many who now vote Republican. Through mass actions, especially when we transform our unions, the basic defense organizations of our class, into instruments of struggle. Struggle for the broad interests of our class - I'm certainly not suggesting that a nickel raise should be the be-all or end-all by any means.

But if the struggle that working people are carrying out today is for a nickel raise, or more likely to keep their health insurance plan from being gutted, that's a lot more important than any bourgeois election, as a starting point and learning experience that can lead to bigger and broader things.

[flyby]

i think this is an interesting exchange.

I will not be the first person to comment that the arguments of "The Militant" (the SWP) have become strangely apologetic towards Republicanism lately. (Just as people point out that the SWP has been very hostile to the Iraqi resistance.)

The idea that progressive middle class peole are just hostile elitists is (a) wrong, (b) runs against the importance of uniting with and struggling with these forces, and © adopts arguments that dovetail the conservatism of Republican Populism.

Is it "elitist" to advocate affirmative action? Or abortion rights? Or dare defy patriotism? Or oppose religion that befuddles working people? Is it "elitist" to uphold science and rational thought? These are things that revolutionary communists and progressive intellectuals often agree on -- and these are important political points of unity that should be upheld (not written off as elitism.)

There is a whole republican populism that claims the backward prejudices of the people (especially the most backward and religious white people) should be upheld -- and everything else should be denounced as "activist judges" or "out of touch people on the coasts."

Serivian's characterization of Alabama white workers who vote republican is, i believe, revealing and wrong. For exactly these reasons. There has always been a (far too sizable) current among working class white people in the Deep South who are reactionary (and more than a little klan-like and fascist). Not a majorty, but quite a few. It is a reality we should deal with, and seek to transform. But why justify or prettify their nonsense, knucklehead patriotism, and often-insane fundamentalism, and not-so-hidden racism. Let's deal with reality!!

Why does a white working class guy in Alabama vote for Bush? Because Alan Alda is an elitist? dude, puleeeez.

And the implied argument that they are justified in resenting and hating the "elitism" of progressive and liberal forces (including the rather radical and important cultural forces like Susan Saranden etc.) is very close to (and seems lifted from) the republican cultural wars.

On another tip, and side of the argument.

Much of what Serivian did was argue by false analogy. And this is not helpful (though in my experience the SWP trains people to argue this way.)

It is kinda: "If A looks like B, and B sorta looks like C, and I can pretend that C is the same as D, then you are wrong and the SWP is right."

For example, arguing that the CP did this or that during the FDR Landon election of the 1930s does not mean anything about the RCP now: The RCP does not and did not endorse Kerry (secretly or openly). And in fact did much to expose his politics.

The RCP has always and sharply criticized the rightism and reformism of the CP -- and has not, in any way, adopted or imitated their support for imperialism.

So Serivian notes that Kerry is pro-war (as if the RCP doesn't know, and piont this out constantly.)

Just for clarity: All of the RCP's articles on the election have argued hard against supporting Kerry or letting the "opposition to Bush's agenda" be confined by or defined by the Democratic imperialists.

just a few articles with drive that home:

Bush vs. Kerry: The Conquerors' Debate
http://rwor.org/a/1254/elections_bush_kerry_debate.htm

John Kerry and the Mission of War
http://rwor.org/a/1243/kerry_war.htm

Actually the most important (and I think mindblowing) analysis of this is the discussion of the conflict between the Clintons-in-power and the republican right:

The Truth About Right-Wing Conspiracy…And Why Clinton and the Democrats Are No Answer, by Bob Avakian
http://rwor.org/a/1255/avakian_clinton_rig..._conspiracy.htm (http://rwor.org/a/1255/avakian_clinton_right_wing_conspiracy.htm)

(anyone reading this can see that Serivian's characterization of the RCP as secretly supporting Kerry completely misses the argument.)

Once we clear that up, we can dig in deeper. Since most of Serivian's charges and analogies confused things -- and seemed to argue by distorting the argument of the RCP not answering it.

Why don't we discuss real issues seriously, without that kind of unprincipled bullshit and distortion?

I will try to anshwer your arguments seriously and honestly.
and would appreciate if you do the same.

[flyby]

On a secondary point (with a similar revealing methodological aspect):

Maoists fully support legal equality for gay people (and have always done so in my experience).

For example read this: Anti-Gay Marriage Amendment: Tightening Tradition's Chains http://rwor.org/a/1231/gaymarriage.htm

Or this article (which is one of my favorites) : The Insane Ravings of the Marriage Police http://rwor.org/a/1210/gaymarriage.htm

However, Serivian doesn't deal with this, but rather responds to my remarks about gay marriage by dragging mao and stalin into it: Wacky to hear about this in defense of an RCP statement, BTW; the record of Mao and Stalin on abortion and gay rights is far worse than Bush's.

Oh, really?

Well first of all: The Bolshevik revolution was the first movement that legalized gay sexuality. Later in the thirties they got more conservative on such things (and the RCP criticizes them for that.)

As for Mao: ok, why don't you document your claims. What do you claim Mao did on abortion and gay rights that is worse than Bush?

You can't, cuz your facts are wrong.

Under Mao, abortion was made legal, and was one of the first forms of medical care to reach the countryside. Teenage women were trained in portable abortion and methods of birthcontrol (as part of the bare foot doctors campaign in the cultural revolution.) Mao supported the availability of birth control and reproductive rights for women -- and his revolution made it a reality for millions of women for the first time. At the same time, the Maoists opposed pressure for birthcontrol that would restrict the survival and growth of minority nationalities (like the Ughars or Tibetans).

As for your claims about his approach to gay marriage: why don't you document that Mao's approach is "worse than Bush"? Do you have ANY evidence of mao's position and policy on this? Overall, under mao, there were huge changes in the freedom of women to make choices in their love partners and occupation -- the sale of women stopped. Arranged marriage and child marriage stopped.

The only thing I have ever read about gay relations in china comes from the experience of the Red Army liberating factories where women were locked up and imprisioned by capitalists, and developed lesbian love relations. And (from what I have read) they were not treated as fucked up.

But i suspect you don't even have that information. Or if so, produce it.

My point is both that your claims are not factual -- and also that your method of argument (taking the RCP's statement on gay marriage which is clear, and shifting the argument to Stalin and Mao -- as if their policies are the same thing as the RCP, or as if a critique of stalin automatically applies to Maoists seventy years later.)


For those interested in the position and outlook of the RCP on homosexuality, this is a good place to start: http://rwor.org/s/gaylesbian.htm

This position paper is a rather unique theoretical and self-critical summation of the communist position on Homosexuality http://rwor.org/margorp/homosexuality.htm

Anyone interested in a serious Marxist analysis of sexuality and homosexuality: I recommend that you dig into and grapple with this piece.

It is rooted in a sharp and developing critique of some long standing views within the International Communist Movement (views on sexuality, women's liberation and on homosexuality). I.e. including a break with Stalin's (and in some ways with Mao's) approach on aspects of these questions.

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 14 2004, 05:07 PM
i think this is an interesting exchange.

I will not be the first person to comment that the arguments of "The Militant" (the SWP) have become strangely apologetic towards Republicanism lately. (Just as people point out that the SWP has been very hostile to the Iraqi resistance.)
If you want to point to any specifics, feel free. It's certainly true that you "will not be the first": the SWP is widely hated and denounced by middle-class leftists, who find it a useful focus for their hatred for the Leninist concept of the party, and routinely accuse it of all kinds of things. It's also true that the SWP's been hostile to the bourgeois nationalist, generally rightist, often tied to the old regime forces who make up the "Iraqi resistance."

Probably the editors of the Militant consider the danger of adaptation to the Democratic Party greater than the danger of adaptation to the Republican Party, and are placing more emphasis on combating illusions in the Democrats. I have sometimes thought they're overdoing it a bit, maybe because they're in New York where the pressures are greater...but then I see how universally other parties calling themselves communist are capitulating to the Democrats, and begin to wonder if I've underestimated that danger.

The Militant's estimate of the Iraqi resistance's prospects actually relates to the adaptation-to-liberalism prospect: much of the capitalist media, as part of their criticism of HOW Bush has been conducting the war, and implying that Kerry could do better, has overemphasized its strength and long-term prospects. Some leftists have followed in their footsteps.



Is it "elitist" to advocate affirmative action? Or abortion rights? Or dare defy patriotism? Or oppose religion that befuddles working people? Is it "elitist" to uphold science and rational thought? These are things that revolutionary communists and progressive intellectuals often agree on -- and these are important political points of unity that should be upheld (not written off as elitism.)

Straw man. None of those are the reasons these people are elitist, and you've chosen not to engage the points the Militant did make.


Serivian's characterization of Alabama white workers who vote republican is, i believe, revealing and wrong.

In point of fact, I didn't specify "white", and one of my Black coworkers recently told me he voted for Bush in the last election, hoping for a change. He voted for Kerry this time.

Most Black voters chose Gore last time, of course, but this example is typical in one respect: most working people don't have a deep connection to either party, but have transitory reasons for thinking one is slightly less bad this time.


For exactly these reasons. There has always been a (far too sizable) current among working class white people in the Deep South who are reactionary (and more than a little klan-like and fascist). Not a majorty, but quite a few. It is a reality we should deal with, and seek to transform. But why justify or prettify their nonsense, knucklehead patriotism, and often-insane fundamentalism, and not-so-hidden racism. Let's deal with reality!!

Hmmm....I don't think you're speaking from any deep knowledge of the attitudes of working people in this region, but rather from prejudice. And in the process showing yourself an example of precisely the kind of class-prejudiced middle-class leftist the Militant was talking about.

Then you add the disclaimer...it's "not a majority" you're accusing of being Klan sympathizers. Well, good. But I was speaking about the majority of working people, so feel free to address the actual topic of discussion.


Why does a white working class guy in Alabama vote for Bush? Because Alan Alda is an elitist? dude, puleeeez.

No, because Kerry is an elitist, from a well-off patrician family, and married to a ketchup heiress. Are you going to try to tell me he isn't? Then why aren't working people justified in distrusting him because of it?

Neither I nor the Militant said anything about Alan Alda, nor said that workers' votes were influenced by the elitism of any "progressive" or any liberal other than Kerry himself. The Militant's main point - and certainly my reason for linking the article - was to explain the reason for middle-class liberals' and leftists' reaction - not primarily to explain workers' votes.


And the implied argument that they are justified in resenting and hating the "elitism" of progressive and liberal forces (including the rather radical and important cultural forces like Susan Saranden etc.) is very close to (and seems lifted from) the republican cultural wars.

No, the culture warriors argue that someone is "of the people" or of the "elite" based on their "cultural" attitudes rather than economics. Obviously I haven't done anything like this: middle-class people are middle-class because of economics...and fear and despise working people fundamentally because of economics, as the Militant explains. Incidentally, the Militant was primarily explaining

Actually, your description of Alabama "white workers" could be more accurately considered a mirror-image version of the culture-warriors' identification of their reactionary attitudes with working people of the "heartland": you just consider both bad, where they say both are good.


For example, arguing that the CP did this or that during the FDR Landon election of the 1930s does not mean anything about the RCP now: The RCP does not and did not endorse Kerry (secretly or openly).

How is it different? If Kerry losing is bad, why isn't voting for him good? You say the analogy's false, but give no reason WHY it's false or how the RCP's actions are different.


And in fact did much to expose his politics.

I don't read the RW regularly, but this isn't evident from the article posted; Kerry's criticized for failing to fight the Republicans harder, not for being a representative of big business every bit as much as Bush is.


The RCP has always and sharply criticized the rightism and reformism of the CP -- and has not, in any way, adopted or imitated their support for imperialism.

Attacking a party doesn't automatically prove you're fundamentally different. If it did, the Democrats and Republicans would be fundamentally different.


So Serivian notes that Kerry is pro-war (as if the RCP doesn't know, and piont this out constantly.)

You sure haven't pointed it out constantly. You just keep saying Bush is pro-war, as if Kerry isn't. Come on: what's the difference between Bush and Kerry, that we should be unhappy - even despairing - just because Kerry lost?

That's been the issue since the beginning of this discussion, and you've completely evaded it all along.


Just for clarity: All of the RCP's articles on the election have argued hard against supporting Kerry or letting the "opposition to Bush's agenda" be confined by or defined by the Democratic imperialists.

See, you're doing it again. It's not just Bush's agenda. It's the agenda of the whole U.S. employing class, including both parties.



many links

Bubba, if you can't explain or justify what the RCP is saying in one article, it doesn't help to drag in others. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that everything in those articles was right on. Does that make this article right? No. It might make it an isolated lapse, but it wouldn't make it right.

(In fact, they're not right; but letting this debate drift farther afield would just help you in your evasions.)



I will try to anshwer your arguments seriously and honestly.
and would appreciate if you do the same.

In fact, you've done nothing but evade - not answer - my argument from the beginning. Why should we despair over the election results unless one candidate was better than the other?

But if you don't like that question, here's another - and what the heck, I'll quote the "Conqueror's Debate" article since you seem to like it better than this one.

The RCP says: "And millions of people in this country must deliver a clear NO to Bush and all that he stands for."

In pursuit of this goal, what exactly did the RCP tell people to do with their ballots? Did it endorse another candidate? Tell people to rip 'em up and call for a boycott of the election? Avakian doesn't say in that article, beyond a vague call to "mass resistance" - to a Republican "coup" possibly - and I'm not going to read his collected works looking for the answer.

Seems to me that if the RCP is denouncing Bush most heavily, and failing to give any concrete explanation of what to do on election day other than vote for Kerry....that's precisely what the CP did with "Landon must be defeated at all costs."

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 14 2004, 05:13 PM
On a secondary point (with a similar revealing methodological aspect):

Maoists fully support legal equality for gay people (and have always done so in my experience).

Not when in power. Actions speak louder than words - hence the Stalin and Mao examples. It might be interesting as well to research the actions of Pol Pot, the Shining Path, the Nepalese Maoists, and other comrades of the RCP.

From your links, you oughta know that the RCP used to think homosexuality was a bad thing which would eventually cease to exist under communism; anyone who expects Stalinists to change people's behavior solely through gentle persuasion and not physical force....needs to have their head examined.



However, Serivian doesn't deal with this, but rather responds to my remarks about gay marriage by dragging mao and stalin into it: Wacky to hear about this in defense of an RCP statement, BTW; the record of Mao and Stalin on abortion and gay rights is far worse than Bush's.

Oh, really?

Well first of all: The Bolshevik revolution was the first movement that legalized gay sexuality.

Under Lenin and Trotsky, not in the Stalin period.


Later in the thirties they got more conservative on such things (and the RCP criticizes them for that.)

In other words: under Stalin. Among the things they "got more conservative on" was a complete ban on abortion.



Under Mao, abortion was made legal, and was one of the first forms of medical care to reach the countryside. Teenage women were trained in portable abortion and methods of birthcontrol (as part of the bare foot doctors campaign in the cultural revolution.) Mao supported the availability of birth control and reproductive rights for women -- and his revolution made it a reality for millions of women for the first time.

True. Real gains were made as a result of the Chinese Revolution.


At the same time, the Maoists opposed pressure for birthcontrol that would restrict the survival and growth of minority nationalities (like the Ughars or Tibetans).

Also true - at least it's enforced less on the non-Han than on the Han - but doesn't address the main problem with "pressure for birthcontrol": it's every bit as contrary to women's right to choose as banning birth control.

Depending on their population needs, Stalinist regimes sometimes ban abortion and birth control (Ceaucescu) or enforce it (China). What is constant is their approach, which has no respect for women's rights to make their own choices.

It's not surprising that you don't know anything about Mao's policies on homosexuality; I would expect current RCP literature to be completely silent on the subject. The Mao regime persecuted gays severely, especially during the so-called Cultural Revolution. .


(taking the RCP's statement on gay marriage which is clear, and shifting the argument to Stalin and Mao -- as if their policies are the same thing as the RCP, or as if a critique of stalin automatically applies to Maoists seventy years later.)

It was just an aside, not fundamental to my argument, but yes the critique does apply. Stalin and Mao are the political ancestors of the RCP; that kind of legacy remains unless those ancestors are not only disowned - has the RCP even done that? - but their politics subjected to a deepgoing criticism and refutation - not just a few disagreements on particular points, but getting to the fundamentals of why their whole course was wrong. Failing to bring out the full record of Stalin and Mao in this respect is not a good sign.

It's relevant as well, then, to point out that both Stalin and Mao thought it was fine to support capitalist politicians when that fit the diplomatic needs of their states; this is a major root of Stalinist parties' habitual reformism.