American election
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“Lock them up, all of them” is a false alarm?
And we had the same slogan in 2016 and Hillary is still not locked up.
“Mass rallies are a false alarm?”
And we have BLM mass rallies
“Leader cult is a false alarm?”
The key campaign strategy for the Democrats is Biden as America’s patriarch.
“Lost golden age syndrome is a false alarm?”
America’s Manifest Destiny is decades old and still held to be true by most Americans and both parties.
“media is the enemy” is a false alarm? Outlawing speech critical of the leader is a false alarm? ”
Just where is this clamp down on free speech and a free media?
CNN? MSNBC? If anything they are giving a free pass to Biden in their coverage such as the Hunter Biden business dealings and did you not notice how they ignored Sanders last year.
“Deportation is a false alarm?”
And who was called ‘deporter in chief’? Obama deported more people than Clinton and Bush combined.
I could continue rebutting each of your claims, but the above is suffice to reveal that it is yourself who is being naive, believing that Trump is an exception and that Biden is on the side of the angels…who promoted the Crime Bill that led to the incarceration of hundreds of thousands? Who supported foreign wars that led to the deaths of millions and failed states, who has said that if M4A comes before him he will veto it?
Come on, LT, let us have some perspective and stop with all the ahistorical hypocrisy.
There was no claim that Stalin was a socialist. And our criticism of the Bolsheviks goes beyond Stalin to include Lenin and Trotsky
“How far did you get in school again?”
You, do you realise just how elitist and arrogant that ad hominem attack is, don’t you? Scarcely worthy of anyone who considers himself a socialist.
Hilarious logic: Don’t sound the alarm, don’t cry wolf until it happens! It would be funny if it wasn’t for the fact that many like yourself said the same thing about the monsters of history during their time and so many had to suffer as a result. Do you recall who was Time’s man of the year in 1938?
Those who fail to learn from history …
There was no claim that Stalin was a socialist.
We were pointing out the impossibility of socialism in Russia in 1918,
Alan, not I, was making that claim, if you followed what was said.
Btw, there is nothing arrogant about education. But there are those who pretend to be educated and are not.
And there are those who were deprived of formal education and who had to learn for themselves, LT, in the university of life and the school of hard knocks.
“If a worker wants to take part in the self-emancipation of his class, the basic requirement is that he should cease allowing others to teach him and should set about teaching himself.” – <b>Joseph Dietzgen</b>
I am not at all naive but indeed there are those who call wolf, just as Malcolm X said, to scare people into the clutches of the fox. Not perhaps yourself but many of the commentators on the Biden-friendly media outlets.
Anyways, we will find out within the week or so who turns out to be correct. I will be courteous and civil enough to admit my error if your prediction proves to be true and a coup is attempted. I hope you will be equally gracious if it turns out that you are wrong and the unrest is restricted to some extremist right-wingers refusing to acknowledge defeat because cry-baby Trump will say he was robbed, that the system was fraudulent and perhaps some of his supporters will be in denial also.
However, his base is a minority and it will be what the majority decides what is legitimate which will prevail.
If Trump wins by the electoral college vote as he did last time without the popular vote, the Democrats will grin and bear it for the next four years as they did for the last four years.
However one important change may well be that the both the House of Representatives and the Senate will have Democratic Party majorities. As pointed out to me when i suggest on a forum a President Sanders opposed in Congress could exercise power through presidential executive orders, he cannot rule through them. They have limitations. Trump is also aware of this as i previously said his own generous stimulus plan for the pandemic is stymied by the Republicans, not the Democratic Party.
LT, if I had £10 for every false prediction I had heard from Trotskyists over the last 40 years, I would be able to retire comfortably, instead of having to drag my aged bones out to bloody work every week.
Beginning with predictions of the development of mass “marxist” Labour Party in the 1980s, ( I remember being in Militant HQ when Benn lost the Labout deputy leader vote and being told that this was a high water mark for the right in Labour Party by one the inner sanctum of their leadership) the collapse of British Capitalism after defeat in the Falklands (who can forget the SWP with the heading The Malvinas es Argentinas on the front of their paper and Tony Cliff and his mob supporting the Fascist Galtieri) and how the miner’s strike was going to lead to the British Revolution, etc. etc. The list is ongoing.
With the number of Trotskyist internationals and parties world wide, you’d think the odds are they would finally get one prediction right, but so far no sign of that.
I think the biggest service the Trostksyist collective could do for the working class, is to get all of the different Trotskyist parties to start giving individual horse racing tips, then we wouldl know exactly which horses to avoid!!
I think the biggest service the Trostksyist collective could do for the working class, is to get all of the different Trotskyist parties to start giving individual horse racing tips, then we wouldl know exactly which horses to avoid!!
I don’t know if it is an urban legend or not but i have a recollection of reading a history of the British Communist Party which said that their paper, the Daily Worker, had its largest readership when they had a very informed racing tipster writing for it.
Roger D. Harris of the Peace and Freedom Party makes another plea not to vote for the lesser evil.
Left-Democrats Abandon Struggle for the Working Class to the Right
He especially addresses those such as LT
“Those who find this coup scenario somewhat hyperbolic are accused of “naivete and [taking] childish enablement of abuse to new levels.””
The author makes a good point when he says that the election of Biden will legitimise capitalist rule.
Here is the passage where he summarises the “coup scenario” which he identifies as “somewhat hyperbolic”:
”Some of the same people, who believe Trump “continues to lie” and is moronic, delusional, and incompetent, also believe Trump can carry off a coup. Trump, they claim, will command “white supremacist paramilitaries to be prepared to attack his and their ‘enemies’ if he loses on Election Day.” Adding, “Trump also wants Joe Biden and other leading Democrats imprisoned and perhaps even executed.”
We have come across that fantasist view too.
“One of the biggest problems with American democracy is that it’s not democratic.”
“The aim of the right is always to restrict the scope of class conflict – to bring it down to as low a level as possible. The smaller and more local the political unit, the easier it is to run it oligarchically.”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/nov/01/us-politics-state-government-democrats-left
That’s an odd quote (not from the author of the article), at least the second part is. You would normally think that the smaller the political unit is the less easy it would be run it oligarchically. Or, rather, the other way round, that the larger a political unit is the easier it would be to do this.
I wonder on what the quoted author based this view and what his evidence for it was.
The Socialist Standard’s review if Sunkara’s manifesto can be found here.
I took it to refer to the unique American political tendency of states rights and the anti-federal government stance of many like the Rand Pauls. The coal owners could act with impunity in West Virginia, for instance
I have also always wondered if the American way of electing so many public office positions such as judges and district attorneys and coroners and sheriffs and the proverbial dog-catcher is an expression of democracy in action or whether it means those supposed non-partisan officials appeal to political biases of the the electors and they exercise their power with one eye on the elections rather than reflect real justice. When i have asked Americans of both right and left forums i have been unsatisfied with the answers from both. The debate on the SCOTUS is in many ways about this…lifetime appointees are immune to popular pressure but they are political appointees, not fellow professional recommendations.
Maybe it does refer to “states rights” but the claim is the exact opposite of what Murray Bookchin based his theory of “communalism” on and in fact of anarchist theory and the Greens too. In any event, it doesn’t seem obvious that the smaller the political (decision-making) unit the easier it is for an oligarchy to control it.
I see that Glen Greenwald and the progressive media outlet, the Intercept, have parted ways for his critical analysis of Hunter Biden and Joe Biden, a signal that the liberals wish to suppress unwelcomed reporting on Biden. Perhaps an indication of the future under a Biden presidency…friendly coverage from the left. Or will they resume being anti-establishment?
I think concerning the idea of “smaller is better” which we have been skeptical of in the realm of production does involve also a political dimension of democracy.
I had a exchange with “national anarchists” (and i think in the early days on this forum there was someone who posted reflecting their position) by declaring autonomous communities could be legitimately racist and identitarian by excluding those they were prejudiced against on the grounds that local democracy and choice triumphed over all.
All i really am saying is that when implementing socialism, there will be some difficult questions that will have to be resolved. We have to accept that part of the transition will be an uneven development around the globe. I am confident, however, that the best fit from experience will generally prevail.
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