American election
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LT “the pseudo socialists on here would have prefered another 4 years of Trump”
actually, Bonny lad, the REAL SOCIALISTS on here, don’t give a flying fuck which capitalist politician is presented as being in charge of capitalism in the USA, we all KNOW that capitalism is in charge all over the world and we won’t rest until a society of common ownership, democratic control and free access is established. You are welcome to play your silly game of follow the leader, but don’t expect revolutionary socialists to play the same, stupid game.
Elated that Trump wasn’t re-elected. You still don’t get it. Your idealism is blinding you, trumper.
Dont be ridiculous LT. No one here even remotely supports Trump. But then we dont support any other capitalist politician either even if they may be marginally less obnoxious than Trump. Being the lesser evil is still no excuse for voting for Biden if that is what he is. Now that you have voted for Biden you are in no position to complain about what comes next. You got the government you campaigned for. You sided with Wall St in choosing their man. Yet another prole rallying to the cause of the neoliberal establishment
And then you have the nerve to call us “pseudo-socialists”. Hilarious
capitalism is in charge all over the world
No it’s not. In fact, most economies are mixed – market and public. In fact, there are many countries in Europe that have high concentrations of public sector ownership and democratic control with socialist and sometimes communist leaders in power for decades, such as Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark, Greece, Spain and Portugal. And blaming capitalism for everything you don’t like is juvenile.
Furthermore, your idea of not voting is an act of consent and fascist, whether you realize it or not. Just look at the results. Nowhere in the world has non-voters changed anything. Countries with high voter turn-out often have socialist and communist candidates on the ballot.
Being the lesser evil is still no excuse for voting for Biden if that is what he is.
You have yet to show me how not voting changes things. Please provide an example anywhere in the world. I’m waiting.
You have yet to show me how not voting changes things. Please provide an example anywhere in the world. I’m waiting.
Nobody has suggested not voting. Rather what has been suggested is not voting for any capitalist politician he or she be a “lesser evil” or a “greater evil”. Voting for a capitalist politician means endorsing capitalism, And as long as you continue to endorse capitalism things wont change I afraid – not in any fundamental significant sense. A tiny parasite class will continue to enrich themselves at the expense of the great majority whose lives will be rendered insecure and relatively if not absolutely impoverished
The only way you can administer capitalism is in the interests of capital and against wage labour. Even a Bernie Sanders government, never mind a neoliberal like Biden, will in the end be forced to side with the capitalists against the working class. Whether or not he is happy with such a prospect is completely besides the point. The destiny of a Sanders government is not in his hands
So no – not voting wont change things . Only voting for a genuine alternative to capitalism and its wage system will do that. Until that happens on a sufficiently large enough scale nothing will change
LT
So called public ownership is a complete misnomer. The Public do not own a state owned industry any more than they own one in the hands of a private corporation. State property is the collective private property of a ruling class – the national capitalists
Engels made this very point over 140 years ago:
“The modern state, no matter what its form, is essentially a capitalist machine — the state of the capitalists, the ideal personification of the total national capital. The more it proceeds to the taking over of productive forces, the more does it actually become the national capitalist, the more citizens does it exploit. The workers remain wage-workers — proletarians. The capitalist relation is not done away with. It is, rather, brought to a head. “
(Socialism: Utopian and Scientific)
Nobody has suggested not voting.- robbo
If there is no socialist on the ballot, dont vote or spoil your ballot. – robbo Nov. 6, 2020 @ 11:04 pm
There is no contradiction in what I said at all LT
I was not say dont vote at all under any circumstance. Rather I was specifying the circumstance when one should vote – when there is a socialist on the ballot
Even when there is no socialist on the ballot you can still vote by spoiling your ballot. Spoiling your ballot is still voting. It is registering a protest even if it does not count towards electing a candidate
Very soon we will know what direction Biden intends to take when he announces his cabinet and we find out who is included and who is excluded. That will be more illuminating than the platitudes of his speeches
For me, it is not so much Biden won the election but that Trump lost it with his own-goals on the pandemic mostly.
I also think Pelosi played a blinder by refusing to compromise with the Republican Stimulus Plan…even the Republican $400 month would have been suffice to convince hard-up workers to support Trump and Pelosi ended that chance with a decisive block.
But i fully expect many on the right to say “We Wuz Robbed” and also fully expect those on the left not to care why Trump’s message resonated with so many voters.
For those of us still interested in the observations of Noam Chomsky
Chomsky: Voting Is Not the End of Our Work. It’s Only the Beginning.
“Trump has also skillfully tapped reservoirs of anger and economic resentment among the working and middle classes who have been subjected to the bipartisan neoliberal assault of the last 40 years. If they feel that they have been robbed, they have good reason…Less educated workers may not know the details or understand the mechanisms that have been designed to undermine their lives, but they see the outcomes. The Democrats offer them nothing. They long ago abandoned the working class and have been full collaborators in the racket…”
For the left, elections are a brief interlude in a life of real politics, a moment to ask whether it’s worth taking off time to vote — typically against. In 2020, the choice was transparent, for reasons not worth reviewing. Then back to work. Once Trump is fully removed, the work will be to move forward to construct the better world that is within reach.
The first task, imho, is for that left to regain some of their credibility for having endorsed and campaigned for a corporate president. And as for the better world that is within reach, the lesser evil proponents will always find a reason for putting that better world further out of our reach.
As has been pointed out, Leon, we do not say “Don’t Vote”. What we say is “Don’t Vote for Any Candidate who stands for Capitalism”. Nor do we say “Never Vote” (we are not anarchists). We say, where there is a genuine Socialist candidate, if you want socialism vote for that candidate and, where there is not, go and cast a write-in vote for socialism.
You say that that position makes us “Trumpers” because it implied not voting for your chosen anti-Trump candidate, that of the openly pro-capitalist Democratic Party, Biden.
So your position was not go and vote but go and vote for a particular candidate. It was “Don’t Vote for anyone except Biden”. It implies that anyone who campaigned for any other candidate, such as the Green Party’s, are also “Trumpers”. I don’t know if you do go that far but the logic of your position is that anyone who didn’t vote for Biden is a trumper, even, since you think Trump was a fascist, a fascist.
Anyway, you’ve got your man into the White House and there’s dancing in the streets. He will fail to live up to his supporters’ expectations, not because he’s incompetent or insincere or not radical enough or doesn’t have a cooperative Congress, but because it’s capitalism not who is president that determines what will happen. The difference will only be of style. Instead of an uncouth loudmouth US capitalism’s CEO will be a smooth-talking professional politician.
But don’t just take our word for it. Wait and see and learn by experience that capitalism can never be made to work in the interests of the majority.
My time lines and zones in the Southern Hemisphere make timely responses seem like a telegram.
I was initially going to respond to ALB on the article I had posted on motivative tendencies regarding voting- oh ALB, thanks for your return post on the matter- added a missing element.
But now after reading the developing thread: Leon Trotsky. Consider what ALB said:
“But don’t just take our word for it. Wait and see and learn by experience that capitalism can never be made to work in the interests of the majority.”
… And I might add: pick any neighbourhood in America. Observe the haves and have nots. Consider and observe the apex distributions of wealth. Use it as a reflexive measure. Then measure it again in 1, 2, 3, 4 years: is it the same? I have a certain feeling based on observation (somewhat academic, and somewhat just me) that things will not have changed. See that same neighbourhood in two or three points in time, still struggling in poverty: now this time a rhetorical statement and not a question… and I have a feeling you know the outcome.
We want the mode to work for the totality of society, not some vanguard, nor majority, but the whole of society. Capitalist reformism can’t give us that. Socialism can.
Voting for a true socialist mode candidate is our only power- as we are locked out of the lobby cash game. The only remaining tool is democratic casting and our vote is not conditional on our wealth (good thing the property and wealth test has gone regarding ballot casting).
Let go of that hat!
Argentina, 2001, spoilt ballots brought down the government. So, no, you don’t have to vote for them, and open expression of non-voting, when done by enough people, can have political effects.
Young Master Smeet,
I appreciate your comment “when done by enough people”. It shows promise for change. Sad though, that even after that 2001 non-voting event that it was business as usual…
When done by enough people it could be as easy as you say:
“The only good president is no president, so vote for no-one…
Socialists organising in the states don’t need to take the presidency, only gain sufficient power for a constitutional convention… (so that’s control of the legislatures of 38 states, easy).”
Not sure of the 38 state though- perhaps the major state, over time, conflation of socialism with numbers, and over several jurisdictions- then we are home.
Forgive my edits, I am out of post times, and have that while some sleep… some awake.
There must be some way out of here said the poet to the thief
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