American election
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We are in favour of democracy as a means to bring about socialism.
We have had members living under conditions of dictatorship, and the priority was their safety, and continuing to put the ideas of socialism.
Trump has millions of very active supporters, and he’ll not succeed in overthrowing democracy without that continued support and the capitulation of his opponents (as when Bush II took power). Our priority remains the education of the working class.
I’m sure our members would be active in their unions to make it clear that dictatorship is bad for the profits of the capitalist class.
LT is not even a Trotskyist let alone a socialist. He is just a common or garden petty reformist.
The Trotskyist position on reforms is that their vanguard party should aim to get a mass following by putting forward unrealistic reform demands in the expectation that, when the masses realise that capitalism can’t grant these reforms, they will turn to to the vanguard party to lead them in a mass insurrection against the capitalist state.
In practice this does not work as workers realise that the demands are unrealistic (under capitalism to which they see no alternative) and don’t follow the vanguard. Or the Trotskyists themselves come to believe that the reforms are realisable and to concentrate on trying to get them, and so end up as leftwing reformists. Maybe this is what has happened to LT.
Anyway, the arguments he puts against campaigning for socialism are those of any old reformist, including those who seek merely to “humanise” capitalism or to “knock off its rough edges”.
In fact he is not even arguing for an improvement but only against things getting worse and saying that we should vote for a capitalist party to try to stop this — and accusing us of being “fascists” for not going along with him.
Our argument is about what socialists should do to further the cause of socialism, not what reformists should do to try to reform capitalism. Since we are socialists and he’s a reformist no wonder we are at cross purposes.
The USA government tried to impose a dictatorship in Bolivia and it did not work out, now the situation came back to the original situation, Evo Morales is back, the MAS Party ( Movimiento Al Socialismo ) took control of the state apparatus and the economy, capitalism wearing a mask of socialism will continue exploiting the working class, and the allied of the USA might face criminal charges and the USA have abandoned them and denied their travelling Visas to the USA. The election has proven that the OEA ( Organizacion de Estados Americanos ) was lying there was not any electoral fraud, the MAS had the approval of the most of the Indigenous peoples of Bolivia
US fascists suppress the vote. Some BMs on this site like robbo take it one step further and encourage voters to tear up their ballet. “Long live the greater evil” say the US fascists and their supporters her
Now you are being dishonest LT.
I didn’t say voters should “tear up their ballot”. I said they should “spoil their ballot” (which means something different) if there is no socialist candidate. Spoilt ballots at least get registered, torn up ballots dont even get to go in the ballot box at all. You might as well not even bother voting at all in that case
As for your other comment I treat that with contempt it deserves, There are no supporters of Trump on this site that I know of. No one here would come out with such a dumb remark “as Long Live the greater evil”
Socialist support neither the “greater evil” (Trump in the case) nor the “lesser evil” (Biden) but there is at least one fervently anti-socialist supporter of Biden’s neoliberal capitalist agenda I know of on this list who clearly does support the latter.
Namely your good self….
I am sorry to say that Leon Trotsky is not a Trotskyist as he pretends to be, and he is not a socialist either, he is what in the Leninist movement are called democratic peoples, or sympathizer, probably, it would be better for him to be a little more humble and pay attention to the members of the SPGB and learn from them, and he might become a genuine socialist, there are peoples in this forum that I can not tie their shoelaces. As a joke about Socrates demonstrated that we can even learn from a little children
I have known many Trotskyists and they have different conceptions about reforms and reformism ( It is not the same conception of the SPGB, we approve reforms beneficial to the workers, but we are not reformists ) as Leninist their first priority is the vanguard party to lead, even more, I have seen them being infiltrated inside the Workers Unions in order to take control of the worker’s unions as cadres of the Trotskyist Party and to impose their own type of reforms, the same situation used to take place with the Stalinists, although the only difference between Stalinists and Trotskyists is the management style of how to control and dominate the workers.
Precisely many divisions have taken place within the Trotskyists movement due to their conceptions on alliance and reformism, and the Fourth International has also had many splits based on the same aspects
LT,
I gave you the example, Argentina:
https://www.electionguide.org/elections/id/276/
One fifth of voters cast an invalid vote.
And the elections came before the riots:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_Argentine_legislative_election
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/December_2001_riots_in_Argentina
Whilst not progressive, the 2017 boycott of the Presidential re-run eventually did allow Odinga to leverage some sort of truce with the incumbent:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-41757612
(Incidentally, the Kenyan Presidential election is worth reading up about in terms of being a very similar story to what is happening in the states)
Can you define the meaning of socialism or socialists and pseudo socialists? We are waiting for your lectures. By the way, there are two articles published in this forum written by two Argentinian newspapers which back up what we have been saying, even more, some Argentinian Guevaraists have the same opinion
You must remember that Republicans and Democrats workers are part of the USA working class, and both sides are exploited by the same ruling class, and that ruling class is politically represented by two political parties
if both sides decide to spoil their ballots neither Biden nor Trump would have won. Your statement shows that you do not have a clear conception of what really the working class is, even more, as a Trotskyist you should have a clear conception about that.
The proper expression is not progress,( and progressive was a bourgeoise reformist trend which existed in the USA in 1890 ) and it is not a term that we use, that is a terminology used by social democrats and member of the USA Democratic party, and some of its caucus. There is no progression in capitalism, the real progress would be under socialism, or a society based on the common possession of the means of production.
PS Progressive is also the name of the followers of Lula in Brazil and it is also the name of his political party
Probably you do not know that Argentina has several political parties,( they do not have two ) and the Argentinian workers have more class consciousness than the US working class, and you do not need millions of dollars in order to register a political party, and it is also mandatory to vote between the age of 18 thru 70. Some countries in Latin America several dictators have had two political parties and it was also mandatory to vote for them, and most of those dictators have been supported or placed in power by Republican or Democrats presidents, the coup in Honduras was promoted by Barrack Obama and Hillary Clinton was part of the coup. Most coups and invasions have been done by USA democratic presidents including John F Kennedy who ordered the assassination of several leaders
Costa Rica is a small country in Central America controlled by right-wingers ( Right wings political parties and right wings christians ) and every vote is counted and every four years new senators, judges and other officials are replaced by-elections. They do not have an army but more than 50% of the population owns a firearm, can they be called Fascists?
Reality check. If everyone did what the pseudo socialists wanted voters to do in the Nov. 3 election – don’t vote – Trump, the greater evil, would have won.
I think you are slightly confused LT
The pseudo socialists, as represented here by your good self, actually wanted people to vote – but for pro capitalist Biden rather than the pro-capitalist Trump
The real socialists, of course, did not want people to vote for either of these capitalist candidates. However, had we been in position to be able to convince people not to vote for Biden or Trump then it follows we would also be in a position strong enough to put up candidates ourselves, And obviously we would then be urging workers to vote for these candidates even if you, as a non socialist, would doubtless continue wanting to vote for someone like Biden
So once again LT your argument falls flat on its face, I’m afraid
If the USA working class had class consciousness the WSPUS ( World Socialist Party of the USA ) would have millions of members, and they could have had their own candidates, they would not ask workers to spoil their ballots, they would ask workers to vote for our socialist candidates, and we ( WSM ) would be the winners for real progress, we do not have to vote for a president, we just need to take control of the political system,( Senators and House representative ) and it would be a real knock out for the US ruling class. We do not need fake socialists like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez
In other countries around the world, the USA Congress is known as the Club of the Rich, and the White House is known as the Slaughter House, and also they say that every USA president must read and guide himself or herself by the same handbook, and many peoples are also saying that they will never vote for any of the candidates of the Republican or the Democratic party because both are the same. Can they be called Fascists?
I’ve had an email from my MP, who is a Liberal Democrat (not quite sure how I got on her mailing list), but here’s her comment on the US presidential election;
”I was very pleased to see Joe Biden confirmed as the next President of the United States over the weekend. I believe his policy priorities reflect what our government’s priorities should be here: competence and compassion in the fight against Covid-19, a strong programme to combat climate change, a commitment to fight racism and prejudice, and an economy that works for everyone. I respect President-elect Biden’s honesty and integrity and am relieved to see the return of decency to the White House.”
I suppose he could be described as a liberal Democrat (and I suppose LT would have campaigned and voted for her rather than the Labour Party as she was the best placed candidate to defeat the “greater evil” of the Tories,)
An economy that works for all? Making the capitalist economy work for all, that’s mission impossible. Capitalism can only work as a profit-making system in the interest of the profit-takers.
It sounds like Lenin who said that state capitalism was beneficial for the majority of the working class. If they are called liberal why do they want state intervention? It should be the opposite way
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