The World Can't Wait! Drive Out The Bush Regime!

[redwinter]

The World Can't Wait!
Drive Out the Bush Regime!

Mobilize for November 2, 2005

worldcantwait.org (http://worldcantwait.org)

Your government, on the basis of outrageous lies, is waging a murderous and utterly illegitimate war in Iraq, with other countries in their sights.

Your government is openly torturing people, and justifying it.

Your government puts people in jail on the merest suspicion, refusing them lawyers, and either holding them indefinitely or deporting them in the dead of night.

Your government is moving each day closer to a theocracy, where a narrow and hateful brand of Christian fundamentalism will rule.

Your government suppresses the science that doesn’t fit its religious, political and economic agenda, forcing present and future generations to pay a terrible price.

Your government is moving to deny women here, and all over the world, the right to birth control and abortion.

Your government enforces a culture of greed, bigotry, intolerance and ignorance.

People look at all this and think of Hitler – and they are right to do so. The Bush regime is setting out to radically remake society very quickly, in a fascist way, and for generations to come. We must act now; the future is in the balance.

Millions and millions are deeply disturbed and outraged by this. They recognize the need for a vehicle to express this outrage, yet they cannot find it; politics as usual cannot meet the enormity of the challenge, and people sense this.

There is not going to be some magical “pendulum swing.” People who steal elections and believe they’re on a “mission from God” will not go without a fight.

There is not going to be some savior from the Democratic Party. This whole idea of putting our hopes and energies into “leaders” who tell us to seek common ground with fascists and religious fanatics is proving every day to be a disaster, and actually serves to demobilize people.

But silence and paralysis are NOT acceptable. That which you will not resist and mobilize to stop, you will learn – or be forced – to accept. There is no escaping it: the whole disastrous course of this Bush regime must be STOPPED. And we must take the responsibility to do it.

And there is a way. We are talking about something on a scale that can really make a huge change in this country and in the world. We need more than fighting Bush’s outrages one at a time, constantly losing ground to the whole onslaught. We must, and can, aim to create a political situation where the Bush regime’s program is repudiated, where Bush himself is driven from office, and where the whole direction he has been taking society is reversed. We, in our millions, must and can take responsibility to change the course of history.

To that end, on November 2, the first anniversary of Bush’s “re-election”, we will take the first major step in this by organizing a truly massive day of resistance all over this country. People everywhere will walk out of school, they will take off work, they will come to the downtowns and town squares and set out from there, going through the streets and calling on many more to JOIN US. They will repudiate this criminal regime, making a powerful statement: “NO! THIS REGIME DOES NOT REPRESENT US! AND WE WILL DRIVE IT OUT!”

November 2 must be a massive and public proclamation that WE REFUSE TO BE RULED IN THIS WAY. November 2 must call out to the tens of millions more who are now agonizing and disgusted. November 2 will be the beginning – a giant first step in forcing Bush to step down, and a powerful announcement that we will not stop until he does so – and it will join with and give support and heart to people all over the globe who so urgently need and want this regime to be stopped.

This will not be easy. If we speak the truth, they will try to silence us. If we act, they will try to stop us. But we speak for the majority, here and around the world, and as we get this going we are going to reach out to the people who have been so badly fooled by Bush and we are NOT going to stop.

The point is this: history is full of examples where people who had right on their side fought against tremendous odds and were victorious. And it is also full of examples of people passively hoping to wait it out, only to get swallowed up by a horror beyond what they ever imagined. The future is unwritten. WHICH ONE WE GET IS UP TO US.


These next two months are crucial. The call you are reading has to get out to millions right away – on the internet, passed out as flyers in communities, published as ads in newspapers. DO NOT WAIT!! GET ORGANIZED!! If you agree with this statement, add your name to it!!! And do more than that: send it to friends, get them to sign it, organize a meeting, take it to your church, your school, your union, your health club, your barber shop, to concerts and libraries and family gatherings, everywhere you go. Raise money, lots of money. Get people together, make plans to be there on November 2, and to build for it. GET IN TOUCH WITH US AT OUR WEBSITE, worldcantwait.org (http://worldcantwait.org).

The world can’t wait! Drive out the Bush Regime! Mobilize for November 2!


Initiating signers of this call include:

Margot Harry
C. Clark Kissinger
Travis Morales
Sunsara Taylor

[Severian]

The radical wing of the Democratic Party gets even more (verbally) radical.

[Guest]

Try reading it before talking shit, Severian.

"There is not going to be some savior from the Democratic Party. This whole idea of putting our hopes and energies into “leaders” who tell us to seek common ground with fascists and religious fanatics is proving every day to be a disaster, and actually serves to demobilize people."

[Severian]

Who do you think is going to take over if the "bush regime" is driven out?

Basically, they're just saying the Democratic leadership is insufficiently radical to fight to put the Democrats back in power. Insufficiently willing to disregard election results, among other things.

[redstar2000]

Given the resources of the RCP, this idea seems to me to be wildly over-ambitious.

It is also extremely ambiguous...what does it actually mean to "drive out the Bush regime"?

Usually in this context, "drive out" means remove from power.

But you'd have to work your way down a long list of Republicans willing to "step aside" before a Democrat would be in line for the presidency.

Is it wise to organize against the personality of Bush himself? Particularly since within his regime, he is personally more of a figurehead than a policy-maker.

I gather that this is the RCP's "new gloss" on the campaign against Christian fascism...but I think the old idea was better. It's far more important, in my view, to attack the dominant reactionary ideology among the masses than it is to worry about which ruling class asshole happens to occupy the White House.

This proposal has been criticized by Ben Seattle and others on the grounds that it indirectly "raises false hopes in the Democrats". I can see that this is going to be a problem with this campaign -- who will stop to read the "fine print"?

But with all that said, it will be most interesting to see if people respond positively to a campaign of this nature.

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[novemba]

Let Bush ruin this country, it'll radicalize more people, and maybe even destroy the old bourgeoisie system on the way out, too.

[Phalanx]

I don't think so. As soon as he gets his government-funded Christian schools, he will have brainwashed children from day uno. The battle is now not one of mental defiance, but a physical struggle in the form of the Iraqi and Afghani people resisting a neocolonial power.

[Martin Blank]

I am amazed by the narrow-mindedness, tunnel vision and outright cynicism expressed by the critics of this organizing effort. It is also revealing of the real political programs these comrades have.

Severian, our resident advocate of the convoluted political line of the Socialist Workers Party, USA, is a good example of this. He begins by asking: "Who do you think is going to take over if the 'bush regime' is driven out? Basically, they're just saying the Democratic leadership is insufficiently radical to fight to put the Democrats back in power. Insufficiently willing to disregard election results, among other things."

First, my understanding of the WCW campaign is to build an independent movement that opposes not only the Bush regime, but also the enablers of the Bush regime (the Democrats, the media, etc.) and the capitalists that bankroll them. The intent of the campaign is to draw together those forces that see the need to oust the corporatists from power and no longer have any illusions that the Democratic Party can do -- or will do -- such a thing.

Second, who do I think is going to "take over" if the Bush regime is driven out of power? I cannot answer that. No one can. We are nowhere near such a point to be able to make that assessment. However, I can say that if we -- as communists, as revolutionary democrats -- do nothing, then it certainly will be the Democrats who capitalize on the generalized disgust and anger at the brigandage of the Bush regime. Severian's dilletantism effectively hands political leadership of the democratic movement to the Democratic Party without a fight.

The second part of Severian's comments are quite revealing: "Basically, they're just saying the Democratic leadership is insufficiently radical to fight to put the Democrats back in power. Insufficiently willing to disregard election results, among other things." [Emphasis mine.] What an interesting comment to make! Which "election results" are you talking about, comrade? The 2000 "election results", which were the product of the systematic disenfranchisement of African Americans in Florida? The 2004 "election results", which were the product of systematic disenfranchisement of African American voters in Ohio and Latino voters in New Mexico? Such "results" should be "disregarded" by anyone who gives a damn about democratic rights.

But then, as I have pointed out before, the SWPUSA has been the only organization ostensibly on the Left that saw the 2000 ascension of George W. Bush as being in line with "democracy", and condemned the Democrats for attempting to "steal the election". But then, this line comes from the same organization that believes the U.S. lost the Cold War. Go figure.

RedStar makes a similar error as Severian, though not as extreme. "But you'd have to work your way down a long list of Republicans willing to 'step aside' before a Democrat would be in line for the presidency. Is it wise to organize against the personality of Bush himself? Particularly since within his regime, he is personally more of a figurehead than a policy-maker."

I highly doubt that the organizers behind the WCW campaign are looking for Bush to merely "step aside". For that matter, it seems to me that when they talk about the "Bush regime", they are, again, talking about not only Bush, et al., but also the regime's enablers and paymasters.

RedStar continues: "It's far more important, in my view, to attack the dominant reactionary ideology among the masses than it is to worry about which ruling class asshole happens to occupy the White House." Again, I highly doubt the WCW campaign sees this the same way that liberal democrats like MoveOn or Take Back America (Arianna Huffington's group) -- i.e., see all the ills of the current period as the product of an individual (or cabal of individuals).

"This proposal has been criticized by Ben Seattle and others on the grounds that it indirectly 'raises false hopes in the Democrats'. I can see that this is going to be a problem with this campaign -- who will stop to read the 'fine print'?" The problem with Seattle's critiques of the RCP's line (and, by extension, the line of the League) is that he only sees two sides in these conflicts over democratic rights: if you oppose the Bush regime and its attacks on democratic rights, then you must be giving backhanded support to the Democrats.

This mistake, which is common among many self-described "Marxist-Leninists" (including most Trotskyists and Maoists, I might add), betrays an inherent lack of confidence in the proletariat's ability to organize independently and build an independent movement for its rights and interests. It is not too far from the Marcyite (Workers World Party) theory of "Global Class War", which sees only two great camps: imperialism and its allies, on the one side, and ... everyone else, on the other -- including fascist "anti-imperialists", religious fundamentalists, reactionary exploiters, etc., etc., etc.

Yes, it is true that many of those who may participate in the WCW campaign and protests will still be wedded to the Democrats. The League has already addressed this issue, in broader terms, in its Bulletin No. 2, "From Political Protest to Political Power (http://www.communistleague.org/bulletin002.html)". Thus, RedStar is concerned about "who will stop to read the 'fine print'?" It's a fair question. But this question can only be answered by asking another question: What is the role of a communist organization in a mass movement?

The League believes that working people who are genuinely interested in removing the Bush regime, and want to know what they can do to make that happen, will "stop to read the 'fine print'". It is our job as communists to provide these brothers and sisters with the educational materials that will assist them in this effort. That is providing real leadership: assisting in the process of building up proletarians as educated and active participants in the political struggle.

Even though the League has fundamental disagreements with the RCP in many areas, we are willing to work alongside them to build the WCW campaign. The League's Central Committee has approved joint action with the RCP on this campaign, where possible, building toward the November 2, 2005, national protests. League members have already begun to publicize the campaign among working people, and we will continue to do so. But, let me be clear: we are publicizing this campaign, and helping to build these protests, on our own terms, with our own literature and platform.

Miles

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 1 2005, 03:42 AM
The intent of the campaign is to draw together those forces that see the need to oust the corporatists from power and no longer have any illusions that the Democratic Party can do -- or will do -- such a thing.
"The corporatists" includes the Democratic Party. The objective of this campaign is not to oust both Republicans and Democrats, but only the Republicans.


Second, who do I think is going to "take over" if the Bush regime is driven out of power? I cannot answer that. No one can.

I can. Anyone can. The Democrats will. No alternative is proposed here. Much less a course of action which could build an alternative - much less working-class - contender for power.


Severian's dilletantism effectively hands political leadership of the democratic movement to the Democratic Party without a fight.

No, it hands political leadership of the Democratic movement to the Democratic party...as is inevitable under any approach. If this was a movement for democratic rights, and not for the Democratic Party, it would be directed at both ruling-class parties, not just Bush. All the attacks on working people's democratic rights are fundamentally bipartisan. The PATRIOT Act, for example, is supported by both parties and even the ACLU - it's just some of them, heck including some Republicans, want to fine-tune it. A lot of Ashcroft's mass detentions and deportations of immigrants were carried out under Clinton administration legislation like the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1998.

These are not the "Bush regime"'s attacks on democratic rights. These are the ruling class' bipartisan attacks on working people's democratic rights.

The statement says, "People look at all this and think of Hitler – and they are right to do so. The Bush regime is setting out to radically remake society very quickly, in a fascist way, and for generations to come."

This is, of course, nonsense. This is not a fascist regime, nor even a radically rightist one, nor would the RCP et al be calling on people to sign their names to a statement if they honestly thought it was. It's just an attempt to paint the Bush regime as so evil that the Democrats look good by comparison.


The second part of Severian's comments are quite revealing: "Basically, they're just saying the Democratic leadership is insufficiently radical to fight to put the Democrats back in power. Insufficiently willing to disregard election results, among other things." [Emphasis mine.] What an interesting comment to make! Which "election results" are you talking about, comrade? The 2000 "election results", which were the product of the systematic disenfranchisement of African Americans in Florida? The 2004 "election results", which were the product of systematic disenfranchisement of African American voters in Ohio and Latino voters in New Mexico? .

Again, nonsense, and the inclusion of 2004 just shows you're unwilling to accept any election result where the Democrats lose. (To clinch the point, haven't I seen you claim the 2002 congressional elections were stolen too?) Nobody seriously denies that the Democrats lost the popular vote in 2004 - are you going to endlessly argue over a highly debatable handful of votes in Ohio in an attempt to put Kerry in office despite the popular vote? In other words, exactly what all the radical hangers-on of the Democratic Party have been complaining about for 4 years when Bush did it.


But then, as I have pointed out before, the SWPUSA has been the only organization ostensibly on the Left that saw the 2000 ascension of George W. Bush as being in line with "democracy", and condemned the Democrats for attempting to "steal the election".

For the same reason that the SWP (not SWPUSA, what a cheap dig, and ironic since in fact it's you who's enlisting with the CPUSA in support of the Democrats) was the only party, out of all those who claim to be socialist or communist, which put forward a working-class alternative to all the ruling-class and middle-class parties in the 2004elections - most of the others are in the process of capitulating to the Democrats or their Nader appendage.

Why do you think 1) Gore didn't call for a statewide recount, 2) the Clinton Justice Department declined to investigate the denial of the rights of Black voters but 3) Gore arranged a recount in 4 counties where it would be done by Democratic officials?

Maybe you could reasonably argue that Gore was just trying to steal the election back, but nobody can reasonably deny that was an attempt to steal the election - you have to instinctively and automatically side with the Democratic Party against the Republicans in everything, to fail to notice what Gore was doing.

And a certain amount of election cheating is, in fact, a normal part of bourgeois democracy. Nobody would have noticed anything in the 2000 and certainly not the 2004 election if they hadn't been unusually close.


Such "results" should be "disregarded" by anyone who gives a damn about democratic rights

And here we come to the logical conclusion, what it means to denounce the Democratic leadership for not fighting hard enough to oust Bush.

Because Bush has supposedly already broken with bourgeois democracy, carried out an electoral 'coup' and begun 'fascist' changes - there's no need to respect election rights, that is the forms and processes of bourgeois democracy. The Democrats and encouraged to carry out their own coup, through one or another means. Perhaps the signers of the statement are hoping for something like the middle-class protests which recently forced the resignation of a president in Ecuador.

Fortunately the Democrats are not going to take this advice anytime soon. If they did, it would mean the real break with bourgeois democracy. Which is preferable to other forms of capitalist rule because it's associated with more democratic rights for working people.

There is a real danger of a break from bourgeois democracy that flows from the increasingly bitter factional divisions of capitalist politics. Divisions which seem to get even more bitter, the less real policy disagreement there is between the parties. And which get more dangerous to bourgeois democracy as partisan divisions deepen within the military officer caste and agencies like the CIA and FBI.

Of course, the petty-bourgeois radicals putting out statements like this one are not greatly adding to this danger, which flows from much larger causes. But in blindly enlisting with the Democratic Party, they are blindly following along with these trends as well.

***

Redstar's got a point about "It's far more important, in my view, to attack the dominant reactionary ideology among the masses than it is to worry about which ruling class asshole happens to occupy the White House."

There is in fact a real danger of growing fascist movements under current conditions - and fascism comes from a mass movement in the streets, radical and verbally anti-corporate or even anti-capitalist. Not from a particular politician being in office.

Countering rightist movements in the streets is far more important than objecting to supposed or even real election fraud. A good example of this being successfully done, in recent years, was the clinic defense mobilizations which pushed back the ultraright thugs of Operation Rescue.

[Martin Blank]

Originally posted by Severian+Jul 1 2005, 02:09 PM--> (Severian @ Jul 1 2005, 02:09 PM)"The corporatists" includes the Democratic Party. The objective of this campaign is not to oust both Republicans and Democrats, but only the Republicans.[/b]

The Democrats have already been effectively ousted from power, except in state and local governments (and, yes, we have to settle accounts with them too). They're not calling the shots. They are, however, acting as enablers of the Bush regime. The task in relation to the Democrats is to keep them from hijacking the democratic movement.


Originally posted by [email protected] 1 2005, 02:09 PM
I can. Anyone can. The Democrats will. No alternative is proposed here. Much less a course of action which could build an alternative - much less working-class - contender for power.

The only reason you can say this is because you refuse to challenge the bourgeois and petty-bourgeois in power. You openly admit here that the only alternative to Bush is whatever figurehead the Democrats put forward. Your view on the democratic struggle is no different from that of the Russian Mensheviks prior to and during 1917: the only alternative to absolutism and totalitarianism is the liberal bourgeoisie.

I will not say it because this movement is in its infancy, and plenty of experiences will take place between now and when any kind of democratic movement is actually in a position to fulfill its goals.


Originally posted by [email protected] 1 2005, 02:09 PM
No, it hands political leadership of the Democratic movement to the Democratic party...as is inevitable under any approach. If this was a movement for democratic rights, and not for the Democratic Party, it would be directed at both ruling-class parties, not just Bush. All the attacks on working people's democratic rights are fundamentally bipartisan. The PATRIOT Act, for example, is supported by both parties and even the ACLU - it's just some of them, heck including some Republicans, want to fine-tune it. A lot of Ashcroft's mass detentions and deportations of immigrants were carried out under Clinton administration legislation like the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1998.

All of this is true. Who here will deny it? What you fail to understand (and, admittedly, I am not surprised, given your chosen doctrine) is that this is not the immediate issue. When you're confronted by two enemies, one with a gun and another carrying the bullets (and wanting the gun), who do you deal with first? If we follow you're advice, we try to disarm them both at once ... which only leads to a bullet in the head.


Originally posted by [email protected] 1 2005, 02:09 PM
The statement says, "People look at all this and think of Hitler – and they are right to do so. The Bush regime is setting out to radically remake society very quickly, in a fascist way, and for generations to come."

This is, of course, nonsense. This is not a fascist regime, nor even a radically rightist one, nor would the RCP et al be calling on people to sign their names to a statement if they honestly thought it was. It's just an attempt to paint the Bush regime as so evil that the Democrats look good by comparison.

"Nor even a radically rightist one"?! Are you fucking kidding me?! What color is the sky in your world, Severian?


Originally posted by [email protected] 1 2005, 02:09 PM
Again, nonsense, and the inclusion of 2004 just shows you're unwilling to accept any election result where the Democrats lose. (To clinch the point, haven't I seen you claim the 2002 congressional elections were stolen too?) Nobody seriously denies that the Democrats lost the popular vote in 2004 - are you going to endlessly argue over a highly debatable handful of votes in Ohio in an attempt to put Kerry in office despite the popular vote? In other words, exactly what all the radical hangers-on of the Democratic Party have been complaining about for 4 years when Bush did it.

I am unwilling to accept any election result where documented, systematic disenfranchisement takes place -- where people, especially working people, are physically denied the right to vote. It is true that, even if Kerry had won Ohio, he would not be a legitimate president. But that's not the issue. The issue here is the fact that African American voters -- in Florida in 2000 and in Ohio in 2004 -- were consciously, systematically and physically denied the right to vote (which is a violation of even bourgeois law).

You and the other reactionary petty-bourgeois socialists are so blinded by your own doctrinaire Potemkin Village idiocy that you cannot even stand for principles that have been a key part of the revolutionary proletarian movement since its inception.


Originally posted by [email protected] 1 2005, 02:09 PM
For the same reason that the SWP (not SWPUSA, what a cheap dig, and ironic since in fact it's you who's enlisting with the CPUSA in support of the Democrats) was the only party, out of all those who claim to be socialist or communist, which put forward a working-class alternative to all the ruling-class and middle-class parties in the 2004 elections - most of the others are in the process of capitulating to the Democrats or their Nader appendage.

Would you prefer if I called your sect "PISPAW", like Tariq Ali did? I use the SWPUSA acronym merely as a means of distinguishing your sect from all the others with the same name.

And, as I recall, there were a number of other Left parties that fielded their own candidates, including the Socialist Equality Party and Workers World Party.


Originally posted by [email protected] 1 2005, 02:09 PM
Why do you think 1) Gore didn't call for a statewide recount, 2) the Clinton Justice Department declined to investigate the denial of the rights of Black voters but 3) Gore arranged a recount in 4 counties where it would be done by Democratic officials?

1) Because Gore was a bourgeois politician trying to win an election, 2) because it would have been more dangerous and volatile for the bourgeoisie to enforce the Constitution than to let Bush take power, and 3) because Gore was a bourgeois politician trying to win an election. What's your point? Again, and once again, this is not about Gore; this is about democratic rights.


Originally posted by [email protected] 1 2005, 02:09 PM
And a certain amount of election cheating is, in fact, a normal part of bourgeois democracy. Nobody would have noticed anything in the 2000 and certainly not the 2004 election if they hadn't been unusually close.

The tens of thousands of African American voters who were physically denied their right to vote would have noticed. But it is clear that such things don't matter to you or the SWPUSA.


Such "results" should be "disregarded" by anyone who gives a damn about democratic rights


Originally posted by [email protected] 1 2005, 02:09 PM
Because Bush has supposedly already broken with bourgeois democracy, carried out an electoral 'coup' and begun 'fascist' changes - there's no need to respect election rights, that is the forms and processes of bourgeois democracy. The Democrats and encouraged to carry out their own coup, through one or another means. Perhaps the signers of the statement are hoping for something like the middle-class protests which recently forced the resignation of a president in Ecuador.

Actually, I am hoping more for something like the mass working-class protests in Bolivia which recently forced the resignation of two presidents. That's the kind of democratic movement the League seeks to build. Thankfully, you won't be in our way. You'll be right where you belong: on the sidelines selling your books.


Originally posted by [email protected] 1 2005, 02:09 PM
Fortunately the Democrats are not going to take this advice anytime soon. If they did, it would mean the real break with bourgeois democracy. Which is preferable to other forms of capitalist rule because it's associated with more democratic rights for working people.

Yes, fortunately, you're right. They'd sooner bloc with Bush against a democratic movement at this time than attempt to take it over. But what would be the implications of such a development? First, it would teach a very valuable lesson to all those radical liberals who still cling to the Democratic Party. It would show them the true colors of "their" party, which would force large sections of them to break away. Second, many of these radical liberals would be more open to discussing with communists and learning about the revolutionary democratic alternative they offer. Third, it will deliver the final death blow to the social-democratic wing of the Democratic Party, thus removing them as an obstacle.


Originally posted by [email protected] 1 2005, 02:09 PM
There is a real danger of a break from bourgeois democracy that flows from the increasingly bitter factional divisions of capitalist politics. Divisions which seem to get even more bitter, the less real policy disagreement there is between the parties. And which get more dangerous to bourgeois democracy as partisan divisions deepen within the military officer caste and agencies like the CIA and FBI.

You speak as if this is some innocuous future event. Again, what color is the sky in your world, Severian?


[email protected] 1 2005, 02:09 PM
There is in fact a real danger of growing fascist movements under current conditions - and fascism comes from a mass movement in the streets, radical and verbally anti-corporate or even anti-capitalist. Not from a particular politician being in office.

Countering rightist movements in the streets is far more important than objecting to supposed or even real election fraud. A good example of this being successfully done, in recent years, was the clinic defense mobilizations which pushed back the ultraright thugs of Operation Rescue.

I was on those clinic defense lines. I fought OR in Buffalo, Baton Rouge, Minneapolis, Philadelphia and a myriad of other cities, including my hometown. I helped to organize antifascist actions across the Midwest and Northeast throughout the 1990s, including several actions that led to decisive defeats for this movement. I personally sent a number of these scum to the hospital.

You talk of fascism coming from a mass movement. What on earth was the anti-choice movement of the 1980s and 1990s, in your opinion? A church revival?! What do you think the Christian fundamentalist movement is? Are you familiar with the links between the anti-choice forces, the fundamentalists and the open fascist organizations? Are you familiar with the Council of Conservative Citizens and its history? Do you know about the links between prominent Republicans and the neo-Confederate movement?

They may not wear brown, black or silver shirts, but the agenda is the same.

Miles

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Perhaps the signers of the statement are hoping for something like the middle-class protests which recently forced the resignation of a president in Ecuador.

According to someone I know, who was at a speaking engagement of Sunsara Taylor (RCP), a signer of this statement, and I believe its initiator, said somthing like "we need to organize somthing along the lines of the 'rose revolution' in Georgia". This was a few weeks ago.

[Severian]

Originally posted by CommunistLeague+Jul 1 2005, 05:52 PM--> (CommunistLeague @ Jul 1 2005, 05:52 PM)
(Severian) If this was a movement for democratic rights, and not for the Democratic Party, it would be directed at both ruling-class parties, not just Bush. All the attacks on working people's democratic rights are fundamentally bipartisan. The PATRIOT Act, for example, is supported by both parties and even the ACLU - it's just some of them, heck including some Republicans, want to fine-tune it. A lot of Ashcroft's mass detentions and deportations of immigrants were carried out under Clinton administration legislation like the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1998.
(CL)All of this is true. Who here will deny it? What you fail to understand (and, admittedly, I am not surprised, given your chosen doctrine) is that this is not the immediate issue. When you're confronted by two enemies, one with a gun and another carrying the bullets (and wanting the gun), who do you deal with first? If we follow you're advice, we try to disarm them both at once ... which only leads to a bullet in the head. [/b]
No, we're facing two robbers, who are working together to stick us up. They disagree about which should be the leader and which the assistant. But even their squabbles help advance their attacks on working people and push bourgeois politics to the right.

The currently standard "left" approach refuses to acknowledge this. You treat the Democratic Party as if they were reformist misleaders of the oppressed, rather than as the co-rulers on behalf of the oppressors.

Contrary to what you suggest, nothing changes fundamentally in a revolutionary strategy just because one or another party happens to be in office this year. Will you do a 180 degree turn if the 2008 election turns out differently?


It is true that, even if Kerry had won Ohio, he would not be a legitimate president. But that's not the issue. The issue here is the fact that African American voters -- in Florida in 2000 and in Ohio in 2004 -- were consciously, systematically and physically denied the right to vote (which is a violation of even bourgeois law)

No, that's not the issue for you, or your focus would be on Black workers' right to vote, along the lines of this January 2001 Militant editorial. (http://www.themilitant.com/2001/6501/650120.html) Not on who won the election and whether they're the "legitimate president".



[email protected] 1 2005, 02:09 PM
Why do you think 1) Gore didn't call for a statewide recount, 2) the Clinton Justice Department declined to investigate the denial of the rights of Black voters but 3) Gore arranged a recount in 4 counties where it would be done by Democratic officials?
(Miiles)
1) Because Gore was a bourgeois politician trying to win an election,

Yes, exactly. And one way bourgeois politicians routinely try to win elections is by cheating, in this case a selective recount. So why was it so awful for the Militant to point this out? Why do you claim this statement, made offhand in the middle of an article, proves the SWP supports the Republicans...but the screaming front-page headlines in the rest of the left press, about Bush's "stolen election" and "coup", don't constitute support to the Democrats?

Answer: because nobody may say anything bad about the Democratic Party's battle against the Satanic Republicans. Because, in fact, it is not about democratic rights for you, it is about stopping Bush.


First, it would teach a very valuable lesson to all those radical liberals who still cling to the Democratic Party. It would show them the true colors of "their" party, which would force large sections of them to break away. Second, many of these radical liberals would be more open to discussing with communists and learning about the revolutionary democratic alternative they offer.

And there you go, the real reason for "the left's" orientation to the Democratic Party and opposition to Bush's coup: your orientation to this radical-liberal layer, which is the prime source of potential recruits and sympathizers for "left" groups....

There is no pressure on any left group to adapt to the Republican party; no organizational interest to be served; no potential recruits to be gained. Even those left groups which have gone over to the ultraright - the LaRouchites and the ex-New Alliance Party people - have nothing to do with the Republicans.

There is, on the other hand, a great deal of pressure to adapt to the Democratic Party, and a great deal to be gained in terms of organizational interests by doing so. Most of "the left" has always been part of a "Popular Front" with them...since 1934, anyway. That majority of the left is just expanding some.

Your only problem, though, is these radical-liberals do not actually believe that bourgeois democracy is dead or elections are meaningless. It may be fun to say so, and produce a pleasantly self-righteous feeling to watch Fahrenheit 9/11 and complain about the "stolen" elections, but nobody really deep-down believes this. The more they hate Bush, the more they want to win the next election. They almost won in 2004 against a sitting wartime president - and won't face that obstacle next time.

And groups claiming to be communist, for all their usefulness to liberalism under certain conditions, are not much help in winning elections presently.

Which is why the RCP has to keep adjusting its line in an effort to find one that will rope in the radical-liberals.


What on earth was the anti-choice movement of the 1980s and 1990s, in your opinion?

I think the clinic blockades were an ultraright mass movement which gives a better idea of what a mass fascist movement will look like, than anything else in recent memory in the U.S. That's why I brought it up...and the clinic defense mobilizations which pushed them back and led to Operation Rescue fading away into spasms of individual terrorism and other acts of desperation. You seem to have missed my point, but who cares.

I also participated in clinic defense, though I'm not going to give a speech about my own wonderfulness. And IMO, the approach of mobilizing in the streets to confront these ultrarightists was and is fundamentally opposed to the approach of backhanded support to the Democrats under the slogan "oust Bush." The first is closer to a class-struggle approach; the second seeks to subordinate the class struggle to the electoral conflicts of the big-business parties.

Are you an ex-Spart or ex-RWLer or something of that nature, by any chance? Your style of argument - the particular way you use specious accusations, especially - is very familiar. Some of the specific taunts and jibes, even, seem very Spart.


And, as I recall, there were a number of other Left parties that fielded their own candidates, including the Socialist Equality Party and Workers World Party.

Workers World ran a token campaign, on the ballot in 3 states, and split, reportedly because of opposition even to that. The SEP is an antilabor group, with a record of actions as bad as the LaRouchites or NAP, which cannot in any sense be considered a working-class alternative. Two other left parties, the Socialist Party and Green Party, also ran candidates, who campaigned in "safe states" where they wouldn't hurt Kerry's chances.

The CPUSA and probably some others openly backed Kerry of course, the ISO openly backed Nader. I don't try to keep up with every left group. But the trend towards the open abandonment of working-class political independence is clear. And the SWP stands in clear contrast to that trend.

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 1 2005, 07:52 PM

(Severian)Perhaps the signers of the statement are hoping for something like the middle-class protests which recently forced the resignation of a president in Ecuador.

According to someone I know, who was at a speaking engagement of Sunsara Taylor (RCP), a signer of this statement, and I believe its initiator, said somthing like "we need to organize somthing along the lines of the 'rose revolution' in Georgia". This was a few weeks ago.
Beautiful. Even better. Thanks. So nice to have a theory confirmed, or in this case over-confirmed.

Lemme point out one other striking thing about this statement: there's no positive program whatsoever. Not even one point of agreement. It's not who you're against, it's what you're for. And the issuers of this statement prefer to leave it unstated what they're for.

"Your government" this and that is also noticeable. One doesn't expect a call for a demonstration to say "the bosses' government" necessarily of course. Coalition and all that. But you'd think a supposedly communist group, which we all know is the main force behind this, could make it say, "the government." At least avoid saying anything obviously false and illusion-breeding.

And there's no demand levelled at the government (as representative of the ruling class.) Which should always be the focus of demands and therefore political fire. Just "oust Bush" directed at some unspecified persons. (Probably radical-liberals who the signers hope will carry out a "rose revolution.")

[Martin Blank]

[i]Originally posted by Severian+Jul 2 2005, 04:25 AM--> (Severian @ Jul 2 2005, 04:25 AM)No, we're facing two robbers, who are working together to stick us up. They disagree about which should be the leader and which the assistant. But even their squabbles help advance their attacks on working people and push bourgeois politics to the right.

The currently standard "left" approach refuses to acknowledge this. You treat the Democratic Party as if they were reformist misleaders of the oppressed, rather than as the co-rulers on behalf of the oppressors.

Contrary to what you suggest, nothing changes fundamentally in a revolutionary strategy just because one or another party happens to be in office this year. Will you do a 180 degree turn if the 2008 election turns out differently?[/b]

A cattle dealer once drove some bulls to the slaughterhouse. And the butcher came nigh with his sharp knife.

"Let us close ranks and jack up this executioner on our horns," suggested one of the bulls.

"If you please, in what way is the butcher any worse than the dealer who drove us hither with his cudgel?" replied the bulls, who had received their political education in the Manuilsky-Barnes institute.

"But we shall be able to attend to the dealer as well afterwards!"

"Nothing doing," replied the bulls, firm in their principles, to the counselor. "You are trying, from the left, to shield our enemies -- you are a social-butcher yourself."

And they refused to close ranks.


Originally posted by [email protected] 2 2005, 04:25 AM
No, that's not the issue for you, or your focus would be on Black workers' right to vote, along the lines of this January 2001 Militant editorial. (http://www.themilitant.com/2001/6501/650120.html) Not on who won the election and whether they're the "legitimate president".

I remember this editorial. I remember reading it when it was first published. At the time, I thought that the demand for a Justice Department investigation could only serve to expose the Democrats. After all, they certainly weren't going to do a serious or thorough investigation of voter fraud and disenfranchisement (for the same reason I wrote in my last message).

At this point in time, however, the demand for a Justice Department investigation is laughable on its face. So, what do we do? Do nothing? That's what you're proposing.


Originally posted by [email protected] 2 2005, 04:25 AM
Yes, exactly. And one way bourgeois politicians routinely try to win elections is by cheating, in this case a selective recount. So why was it so awful for the Militant to point this out? Why do you claim this statement, made offhand in the middle of an article, proves the SWP supports the Republicans...but the screaming front-page headlines in the rest of the left press, about Bush's "stolen election" and "coup", don't constitute support to the Democrats?

Because that's not all The Militant said ... and did not say. The Militant said almost nothing about what the Republicans were doing in Florida in 2000. As I recall, they couldn't even bring themselves to condemn the GOP "mini-riot" in Miami-Dade County. But they could find the space to accuse the Democrats of attempting to "steal" (not "steal back") the election.

It is true that some left publications (Democratic Left, People's Weekly World, etc.) did spend all their time condemning what the Republicans did, and left the Democrats alone. That was, however, to be expected from them. Others, like the Spartacists and the Nader Brigades, considered it all to be a "tempest in a teacup".


Originally posted by [email protected] 2 2005, 04:25 AM
And there you go, the real reason for "the left's" orientation to the Democratic Party and opposition to Bush's coup: your orientation to this radical-liberal layer, which is the prime source of potential recruits and sympathizers for "left" groups....

Given that many of the workers who foolishly support the Democratic Party consider themselves "radical-liberals" of one type or another, what's your point?


Originally posted by [email protected] 2 2005, 04:25 AM
There is no pressure on any left group to adapt to the Republican party; no organizational interest to be served; no potential recruits to be gained. Even those left groups which have gone over to the ultraright - the LaRouchites and the ex-New Alliance Party people - have nothing to do with the Republicans.

There is, on the other hand, a great deal of pressure to adapt to the Democratic Party, and a great deal to be gained in terms of organizational interests by doing so. Most of "the left" has always been part of a "Popular Front" with them...since 1934, anyway. That majority of the left is just expanding some.

So, attempting to win workers -- especially working people of color -- away from the Democratic Party is simply "adapt to the Democratic Party". Uh huh. OK. Now I understand you.


Originally posted by [email protected] 2 2005, 04:25 AM
Your only problem, though, is these radical-liberals do not actually believe that bourgeois democracy is dead or elections are meaningless. It may be fun to say so, and produce a pleasantly self-righteous feeling to watch Fahrenheit 9/11 and complain about the "stolen" elections, but nobody really deep-down believes this. The more they hate Bush, the more they want to win the next election. They almost won in 2004 against a sitting wartime president - and won't face that obstacle next time.

Most workers, at this time, do not support socialism either. Should we give up trying to recruit them, too? Wait a minute! Look who I'm asking?! Silly me!


Originally posted by [email protected] 2 2005, 04:25 AM
I think the clinic blockades were an ultraright mass movement which gives a better idea of what a mass fascist movement will look like, than anything else in recent memory in the U.S. That's why I brought it up...and the clinic defense mobilizations which pushed them back and led to Operation Rescue fading away into spasms of individual terrorism and other acts of desperation. You seem to have missed my point, but who cares.

No, you simply missed reality. That was a fascist movement. Combined with the other networks and organizations that aided them, supplied them with fresh forces, bankrolled them, etc., there was a very real fascist movement in this country in the 1980s. Again, they may not have worn brown, black or silver shirts, but the program and agenda were the same. They were fascist in the same way that Francisco Franco was a fascist; they were fascist in the same way that Father Coughlin was a fascist. And they were able to carve out a political space in the Republican Party, by providing it with votes and money.

And I note with interest that you didn't answer the other questions I asked.


[email protected] 2 2005, 04:25 AM
Are you an ex-Spart or ex-RWLer or something of that nature, by any chance? Your style of argument - the particular way you use specious accusations, especially - is very familiar. Some of the specific taunts and jibes, even, seem very Spart.

No. Both of those groups are nothing more than cults, in my opinion.

And, in terms of "specious accusations", I have only three words for you: Pot. Kettle. Black.

Miles

[Martin Blank]

Originally posted by [email protected] 1 2005, 09:52 PM
According to someone I know, who was at a speaking engagement of Sunsara Taylor (RCP), a signer of this statement, and I believe its initiator, said somthing like "we need to organize somthing along the lines of the 'rose revolution' in Georgia". This was a few weeks ago.
All the better reason to provide a communist alternative.

Miles

[Severian]

I should apologize to any Spartacists who may happen to read this thread.

[shadows]

Originally posted by [email protected] 1 2005, 09:42 AM
It is not too far from the Marcyite (Workers World Party) theory of "Global Class War", which sees only two great camps: imperialism and its allies, on the one side, and ... everyone else, on the other
Marcy's booklets on China and the split with the USSR reveal a Lin Biao influence - an internationalism that pitted nation against nation over class against class.

[riverotter]

Unfortunately, I'm coming a bit late to this but... My take on this:

1) Is it fascism?

No, not yet, but it could easily turn into fascism.

It wasn't fascist in Germany yet either, in the early 30's, but they had a group with a fairly cohesive ideology and a fairly powerful base (the Nazi's) and they had the support of the ruling class, so it was very easy for them to put their program into action when they got the opportunity (the Reichstag fire) and they became full blown fascists. And, as with the Nazi's, the neo-cons with their christian fascist allies, have already put into place laws and organs that could turn the US into a fascist regime overnight (the Patriot acts, political prisons in Guantanamo, etc., homeland security, the jailing of journalists and others.)

They've also made it pretty clear that it's not politics as usual anymore - they're willing to go much farther than anyone ever has, and they're willing to unleash their violent, ultra-right, fascist base. And this is a large part of the reason the Dems can't do shit. Who are they going to call on? The only people they can call on are the poor and oppressed, and there's no way they're going to do that because, as we all know, they don't want the masses to get the bit in their teeth anymore than the Repubs do.

2. What's the point?

I agree that we don't just want to replace one bourgeois puppet for another but a) there's borgeois puppets and bourgeois puppets. What we have right now is a fascist movement with the initiative.

There are other segments of the ruling class that are uncomfortable with their methods but, seeing as they have the same fundamental goals - expanding and consolidating the US empire - they're obviously willing to work with them in the absence of a better alternative. Also, as I mentioned above, they don't have the "reliable" (ie. reactionary) base to depend on.

b) They have to be stopped now... after a fascist coup we will have much, much less freedom, if any, to organize resistence. Part of that is organizing a resistance movement before the iron fist comes crashing down and we all get tossed into Guantanamo.

There were plenty of people who hated and feared the Nazi's, but the communists made the huge mistake of passively waiting for the "pendulum to swing back to the left" - by that time, millions of people, including Jews, had died in the concentration camps. Let's not make the same mistake again.

Of course, our aim is a commuinist world. But it is in times of crisis that not only is the ruling class divided and more open to attack from below but also that much broader sections of the middle see the true nature of the system and can be won to sympathize with, or at least not oppose, us. And, I think as importantly, we can't call ourselves commuinists unless we oppose all forms of oppression.

[Martin Blank]

Originally posted by [email protected] 3 2005, 05:08 PM
Marcy's booklets on China and the split with the USSR reveal a Lin Biao influence - an internationalism that pitted nation against nation over class against class.
If I recall correctly, many of those books were written in the early 1970s, after the old core of the Workers World Party fused with a section of Youth Against War and Fascism (a public front for the Weather Underground), and reflect much of the semi-Maoism that the YAWF brought in.

Miles

[shadows]

While YAWF was hyper-militant, I had no idea that it had been a public front for WUO - from what I've read about WUO, in Ayers recent book, the recent book (I forget the title and the author) on WUO and RAF, and of course in Harold Jacobs book Weatherman, YAWF is either not mentioned or peripheral. I had thought YAWF was just a WWP youth org. I don't know when it demised, but an acquaintance of mine way back in the late seventies was in WWP and asserted that (at least in the Chicago branch) members read Trotsky.

[Martin Blank]

Originally posted by [email protected] 9 2005, 10:05 PM
While YAWF was hyper-militant, I had no idea that it had been a public front for WUO - from what I've read about WUO, in Ayers recent book, the recent book (I forget the title and the author) on WUO and RAF, and of course in Harold Jacobs book Weatherman, YAWF is either not mentioned or peripheral. I had thought YAWF was just a WWP youth org. I don't know when it demised, but an acquaintance of mine way back in the late seventies was in WWP and asserted that (at least in the Chicago branch) members read Trotsky.
YAWF originally started as a youth arm of the WWP, but it soon became a place for WU members to congregate and work openly. I met an ex-WUer once who talked a lot about his experiences going from the WU to YAWF to WWP ... and out. I think it was reflective of some kind of de facto split in the WU.

Miles

[shadows]

Did YAWF have any thing to do with organizing the Hard Times conference? I've read that WUO fell out with Jeff Jones around that time, for reasons I find ambiguous (Thai Jones' book refers to this event, but isn't clear about the politics and ideology changes that were apparently changing WUO).

[Martin Blank]

Originally posted by [email protected] 10 2005, 02:49 AM
Did YAWF have any thing to do with organizing the Hard Times conference? I've read that WUO fell out with Jeff Jones around that time, for reasons I find ambiguous (Thai Jones' book refers to this event, but isn't clear about the politics and ideology changes that were apparently changing WUO).
I'll have to do some searching to get you the answer.

Miles