KurtFF8
17th July 2008, 20:49
There seems to be a lot of discussion on the Communist Party of the US about their suggest or "unofficial" endorsement of Obama and the Democratic Party.
Firstly, I'm not a CPUSA member or really a major supporter but I do think that they may deserve a little more credit than we are giving them on this subject. (Maybe just a little bit more though).
Firstly, their overall argument and reason why it would actually be beneficial to the working class and to the future prospect of revolutionary change to have someone who is leaning to the left versus someone who is leaning to the right should at least on the face of it seem pretty dead on. This of course is the "lesser of two evils" argument that is commonly spouted in the US by non-socialists and socialists alike.
So it does seem to make sense that if one is to participate in elections in the US, it would make more sense to vote for someone like Obama, who has potential to eventually at least pull the spectrum of the country's politics closer to our own, over someone like McCain (for obvious reasons) or even a third party that shares many of our beliefs. (I use our here broadly and subjectively).
So at this point I think that it's fair to disagree with this stance but even in doing so, the CPUSA still has a lot of value. Where people start to criticize the CPUSA as "democratic cheerleaders" comes from the conception that they are replacing any revolutionary/community action/activist activity with "just go vote Democrat".
This isn't completley unfounded in my opinion as I look at a specific issue of Dynamic Magazine that has a cover that reads "Revolt with a vote".
Now the CPUSA may indeed be taking the "vote for Obama and things will eventually get better" a little too far, but I think we shouldn't look into it any more than that: they're just taking a specific stance on an issue too far and focusing on it too much. I don't think that they are revisionsists, capitalist supporters, democratic cheerleaders just because of this (although there could be unrelated theoretical issues that would make them fit this). But it seems that people are also focusing on this issue too much in their criticism of CPUSA.
Personally I think that CPUSA still has value in the movement (they are helping quite a bit with the anti-war movement for example) and a place in future activism and we shouldn't be so quick to dismiss them. I actually disagree with their focus on "we should vote for Obama" and don't think that it will bring about as much change as they claim it will (although I do think it will help a little bit).
Thoughts?
Firstly, I'm not a CPUSA member or really a major supporter but I do think that they may deserve a little more credit than we are giving them on this subject. (Maybe just a little bit more though).
Firstly, their overall argument and reason why it would actually be beneficial to the working class and to the future prospect of revolutionary change to have someone who is leaning to the left versus someone who is leaning to the right should at least on the face of it seem pretty dead on. This of course is the "lesser of two evils" argument that is commonly spouted in the US by non-socialists and socialists alike.
So it does seem to make sense that if one is to participate in elections in the US, it would make more sense to vote for someone like Obama, who has potential to eventually at least pull the spectrum of the country's politics closer to our own, over someone like McCain (for obvious reasons) or even a third party that shares many of our beliefs. (I use our here broadly and subjectively).
So at this point I think that it's fair to disagree with this stance but even in doing so, the CPUSA still has a lot of value. Where people start to criticize the CPUSA as "democratic cheerleaders" comes from the conception that they are replacing any revolutionary/community action/activist activity with "just go vote Democrat".
This isn't completley unfounded in my opinion as I look at a specific issue of Dynamic Magazine that has a cover that reads "Revolt with a vote".
Now the CPUSA may indeed be taking the "vote for Obama and things will eventually get better" a little too far, but I think we shouldn't look into it any more than that: they're just taking a specific stance on an issue too far and focusing on it too much. I don't think that they are revisionsists, capitalist supporters, democratic cheerleaders just because of this (although there could be unrelated theoretical issues that would make them fit this). But it seems that people are also focusing on this issue too much in their criticism of CPUSA.
Personally I think that CPUSA still has value in the movement (they are helping quite a bit with the anti-war movement for example) and a place in future activism and we shouldn't be so quick to dismiss them. I actually disagree with their focus on "we should vote for Obama" and don't think that it will bring about as much change as they claim it will (although I do think it will help a little bit).
Thoughts?