Best Election Graphic of 2016

I can't claim any credit for it, source unknown. But I love everything about this, right down to the "I Voted" sticker on the dumpster. Children are the future, indeed.

Meanwhile, if you really wanna vote in 2016, check out #REV16, the campaign of Mimi Soltysik and Angela Walker, on the Socialist Party USA ticket, but running far to the left of SPUSA's usual politics.

The Parable of the Buffet

I wrote this a year ago for my friends on Facebook as the election season started. I didn’t anticipate how the election season would actually unfold, and I certainly didn’t anticipate the Bernie Sanders phenomenon. But now that the primaries are within sight of an end, with the contest of Hillary Clinton versus Donald Trump (!) a near certainty leaving the Sanders episode as an apparent blip at best (or an apparently successful episode of sheepdogging as many of us have been saying), it seems completely relevant once again. It may be that one day elections are a vehicle for the left: Right now, they’re a resistance-crushing, soul-deadening curse, a societal prophylactic against actual social change. Bon appetit!

A parable; trigger warning, obscenity:

You’re very hungry. You find a lovely buffet.

At the buffet are three tureens. To your horror, as you lift the lid off the first, you discover a miasma of small pieces of broken glass and animal feces. A little perturbed, you slam the lid back down. You move on to the second tureen. When you lift the lid, the stench is remarkable, and a melange of unmistakably human turds and jaggedly sharp glass shards reveals itself. You're a little freaked out but you move to the third tureen. There, you find a gourmet preparation of your most favorite dish, and while you realize you will have to move away from the buffet to enjoy it, you devour it with relish.

The next time you are hungry you return to this buffet. However, you notice there are only two tureens. You remove the first lid, and once again find the vile stew of animal shit and broken glass. You remove the second lid, and once again your senses are assaulted by the display of jagged glass and human waste. You're very upset and disappointed. A person's gotta eat!

What do you do? You might complain to the chef. You might call the health department. You might overturn the buffet and its filthy tureens in outrage. You might even try specially ordering that delicious third dish, but you are now quite concerned about the state of the buffet's kitchen. You will probably go home and cook your own dinner. But I'm pretty sure the absolute last thing you would ever consider doing is eating from the tureen of human turds while explaining that at least it wasn't cat shit. And you certainly wouldn't listen to anyone who tried to convince you that eating shit wasn't really that bad.

‪#‎LessVotingMoreRevolution‬ ‪#‎ReadyForHillary‬ ‪#‎ChuyGarciaBillDeBlasioBarackObamaJeanQuan‬

“It it’s red, white & blue, it’s not real socialism”

Bernie took a drubbing in the NY state primary yesterday, despite the mobilization of much of the NYC left. I am in the strange position of thinking it's great that so many regular folks are open to some of the things Sanders is saying, while actually horrified that so many leftists have set aside their principles and historical legacy to dive in to the Democratic Party. I think long term that nothing good can come of Sanders’ redefining of socialism and revolution to mean something akin to the right wing’s corrupted definition. Anyway, hopefully this meme gets at the difference between Bernie Sanders’ professed socialism and the real socialism of someone like Eugene Debs, who was unequivocal in his opposition to capitalism itself. Nobody on the left should be waving those stars and stripes. Point that fucking bloodsoaked imperialist banner somewhere else.

A Crucial Message for Our Times

Cover of the 1920s Turkish Communist journal Aydinlik picturing Rosa Luxemburg

The excerpt below is not rare or hard to find. It's been in print for generations, and thanks to the good comrades at the Marxist Internet Archive, it is freely available on the internet. But this crucial document, Rosa Luxemburg's timely attack on Bernsteinian revisionism "Reform or Revolution?" should be required reading for today's generation of socialists, especially those who, in the process of #FeelingTheBern, think they are merely choosing one of many strategies for a better world. Youthful optimism is a beautiful thing. But sometimes it is of dire importance to look back over a hundred years ago. Truly, there's nothing new under the sun. The revolution is nothing without the wisdom of fighters, leaders, comrades, philosophers and theoreticians who have fought these battles before. Their sacrifices are supposed to make our struggle easier.

Pay attention!

Below are excerpts from Reform or Revolution, chapter 8, "Conquest of Political Power," first published in 1900 and revised in 1908. Luxemburg's entire pamphlet is available on MIA.

"[D]oes the development of democracy render superfluous or impossible a proletarian revolution, that is, the conquest of political power by the workers?

Bernstein settles the question by weighing minutely the good and bad sides of social reform and social revolution. He does it almost in the same manner in which cinnamon or pepper is weighed out in a consumers’ co-operative store. He sees the legislative course of historic development as the action of “intelligence,” while the revolutionary course of historic development is for him the action of “feeling.” Reformist activity, he recognises as a slow method of historic progress, revolution as a rapid method of progress. In legislation he sees a methodical force; in revolution, a spontaneous force.

We have known for a long time that the petty-bourgeoisie reformer finds “good” and “bad” sides in everything. He nibbles a bit at all grasses. But the real course of events is little affected by such combination. The carefully gathered little pile of the “good sides” of all things possible collapses at the first filip of history. Historically, legislative reform and the revolutionary method function in accordance with influences that are much more profound than the consideration of the advantages or inconveniences of one method or another....

Legislative reform and revolution are not different methods of historic development that can be picked out at the pleasure from the counter of history, just as one chooses hot or cold sausages. Legislative reform and revolution are different factors in the development of class society. They condition and complement each other, and are at the same time reciprocally exclusive, as are the north and south poles, the bourgeoisie and proletariat....

That is why people who pronounce themselves in favour of the method of legislative reform in place and in contradistinction to the conquest of political power and social revolution, do not really choose a more tranquil, calmer and slower road to the same goal, but a different goal. Instead of taking a stand for the establishment of a new society they take a stand for surface modifications of the old society. If we follow the political conceptions of revisionism, we arrive at the same conclusion that is reached when we follow the economic theories of revisionism. Our program becomes not the realisation of socialism, but the reform of capitalism; not the suppression of the wage labour system but the diminution of exploitation, that is, the suppression of the abuses of capitalism instead of suppression of capitalism itself....

No law obliges the proletariat to submit itself to the yoke of capitalism. Poverty, the lack of means of production, obliges the proletariat to submit itself to the yoke of capitalism. And no law in the world can give to the proletariat the means of production while it remains in the framework of bourgeois society, for not laws but economic development have torn the means of production from the producers’ possession....

In a word, democracy is indispensable not because it renders superfluous the conquest of political power by the proletariat but because it renders this conquest of power both necessary and possible. When Engels, in his preface to the Class Struggles in France, revised the tactics of the modern labour movement and urged the legal struggle as opposed to the barricades, he did not have in mind – this comes out of every line of the preface – the question of a definite conquest of political power, but the contemporary daily struggle. He did not have in mind the attitude that the proletariat must take toward the capitalist State at the time of the seizure of power but the attitude of the proletariat while in the bounds of the capitalist State. Engels was giving directions to the proletariat oppressed, and not to the proletariat victorious....

Just as all roads lead to Rome so too do we logically arrive at the conclusion that the revisionist proposal to slight the final aim of the socialist movement is really a recommendation to renounce the socialist movement itself."
 



 

How much is Assata's life worth?

Assata Shakur is a hero of our time. Her autobiography is required reading. "Assata Taught Me" tee-shirts have become ubiquitous in the era of #BlackLivesMatter. And yet, liberal Democratic Party presidential candidate Bernie Sanders is on record voting to extradite Shakur, called here "Joanne Chesimard," from Cuba where she now lives, back to prison in the United States. How do supporters of Sanders justify this? Personally, I hope Assata doesn't ever #FeelTheBern and stays free in socialist Cuba.

Hijack! Bernie Sanders and the Message of Occupy Wall Street

There is a clear straight line from the rhetoric of Occupy Wall Street to the rhetoric of the Bernie Sanders campaign.

Back in Occupy, there were three contending forces challenging economic injustice in this country. There were the End The Fed Paulite rightwingers, who thankfully in NYC were always a tiny minority; there were the Money Out of Politics people, usually also in the minority but generally identifiable as more middle class and more Democratic Party/mainstream oriented; and then there were the social radicals, the anarchists, leftists, and community activists. There was certainly tension in this last group between those who wanted to bring up big-picture, ideology-rooted solutions and those who wanted to engage in strictly responsive organizing, but this third group managed to dominate Occupy as a whole. It certainly did in Occupy Sunset Park in which I was very active.

The genius of Occupy Wall Street included building the kind of united front where these forces could coexist. Had either the End The Fed people or the Money Out of Politics people dominated, Occupy would have been truncated, and of negligible longevity or impact. It was the presence of the social radicals—and I credit the anarchists above all—who dared to make challenging the fundamentals of capitalism seem like everyday possibility.

What we are seeing in the 2016 elections is the seizure of the message and the remnants of momentum by the Money Out of Politics people, and this is not actually a good thing. It was very clear watching Bernie Sanders in the New Hampshire debate how limited this vision is, and how un-radical it is. This is actually Sanders' central focus, and far from containing any kernel of socialism, it is anything but a politically revolutionary demand. Of all the exploitative, oppressive, and broken things about capitalism in the USA, the fact that money buys political influence is the least remarkable. It is either naive magical thinking or deceptive ideological dishonesty to present money in politics as the keystone issue of our times, and to channel the obvious and massive popular discontent into the umbrella of reforming campaign financing and Wall Street influence represents not the triumph of popular upsurge but an attempt by a certain ideology to hijack social momentum. Sure, Wall Street is odious. But it is odious because it is the essence of capitalism not some discoloration of imaginary American democracy.

The enthusiasm behind Sanders' campaign is certainly remarkable, showing many of the signs and symptoms of a real social movement. But let's be clear: the Sanders campaign is not some kind of spontaneous popular upsurge, it is a Democratic Party election campaign, and even if it is often at odds with wings of the Democratic establishment, it is anything but a real social movement with open-ended revolutionary potential. Social radicals, who understand how ideology, class, and leadership function, should not be coddling the illusions consciously fostered by the Sanders campaign; it will come to regret surrendering to a wing of the Democratic Party.

Occupy reminded us that "another world is possible." The world the Sanders campaign is advocating looks a lot like this one. The rich ideological heritage of social revolutionaries identifies capitalism as the problem, and presents us with the imperative of revolutionary change. Setting aside competing strategies and visions for the moment, we would do well to remember all those ideologues and freedom fighters who understood that it is literally impossible to see mass justice and liberation under capitalism, even a capitalism slightly tamed by reform. Hope is a beautiful thing, but to triumph, hope must be informed by an accurate diagnosis of the problem and a prognosis for a cure.

Social radicals who have signed up to organize for Sanders are surrendering the future for the illusion of popular support. It's called opportunism, and it also doesn't work. The Democratic Party is stronger than we are, and they're gonna stay that way unless we make the break that generations of freedom fighters before us understood.

Bernie Sanders Killed Rosa Luxemburg

Print from Max Beckmann, The Martyrdom of Rosa Luxemburg

Bernie Sanders killed Rosa Luxemburg.

Well, no of course he didn't. But his ideological predecessors did. They did it because, like Sanders, they embraced and defended capitalist state power against actual revolution. They, like Sanders, redefined socialism to mean something so much less than the bravest of revolutionary philosophers actually understood. It's a pleasant fantasy to think of Sanders' electoral campaign as some kind of "political revolution," but nothing could be further from the real truth.

There are no short cuts to actual revolution—unfortunately!—and in the extraordinarily unlikely event that Sanders is elected, he will be custodian of the most massive instruments of repression the world has ever known, and like a previous pleasant fantasy (Obama's "change we can believe in") he will use them. Sanders' modest list of reforms, which will not actually be enacted, do not add up to the actual radical realignment of society we so desperately need. Socialism is not the system of state-administered programs Sanders supporters suggest but the transfer of power from the capitalist class to the working class, and that is something no electoral candidate can deliver.

It is very very frustrating that reality disproves the optimism of many Sanders voters, which is why I am beyond frustrated at leftists who are cynically lying about the possibilities behind his campaign. The truth needs to remain our weapon. Sure, the Republican candidates represent some of the worst of humanity; they're terrifying in obvious ways. But look deeper: the truth is that Sanders, Clinton, or Obama before them are a terribly inadequate line of defense against those forces of reaction, and actually if you look into the totality of their records, they are examples of some pretty horrible humanity themselves. Obama, for instance, who speaks movingly about gun violence while green lighting massive violence against civilians in other countries. Remember it was mostly not horrible Republicans who smashed the Occupy movement in acts of violence, it was Obama and the nation's liberal and Democratic party establishment. Bernie Sanders has sat in government for decades funding the machineries of war and vigorously backing such US allies as apartheid Israel. 

Rosa Luxemburg and her collaborators challenged the socialist (social-democratic, more accurately) mainstream of her own time when she loudly condemned German socialists for supporting German imperialism in WW1. In the ruins of Germany's defeat, she dared lead an insurrection, attempting to take advantage of capitalism's disarray. The social democratic mainstream chose instead to defend the German state from that insurrection, and drowned the insurrection in blood. Luxemburg is remembered by today's left as a kind of symbolically humanist alternative to Lenin, who bourgeois history has written off as discredited. Nothing could actually be further from reality, and let us not miss the main point of Luxemburg's lifelong dedication, like Lenin's: the overthrow of capitalism. Because to do this thing is the only way to save humanity from the cannibal brutality of the system that has now survived her murder by almost a century. 

It is beyond obvious that there is no organized revolutionary force capable of challenging the capitalist status quo in the USA. Indeed even Rosa Luxemburg's insurrection was probably premature and rash. But as long as we blind ourselves to the lessons of history — speaking of American exceptionalism! — the seeds and sprouts that signal the possibility of a better world (Occupy, ‪#‎BLM‬) will fall, unwatered, on the sterile ground of playing electoral games that by design cannot actually meet our actual needs. Sure, we have to start somewhere, we need a real and legitimate mass movement. But the Bernie Sanders election campaign is not that movement, not even the seed of that movement. That's gotta be painful for some to hear in a season when we could really use some hope. 

I'm glad my Facebook feed is filled with memorial postings to Rosa Luxemburg: in 21st-century America that's kind of a miracle. But the best way to honor her memory is to finish her actual work.

I really don't want to #FeelTheBern.

#LessVotingMoreRevolution

(crossposted from my Facebook)