robbo203
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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
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
LT
You must be quite elated now. Your guy is now the 46th President of USA. Phew it took quite a while but you got there eventually.
Out to celebrate on the town tonight?
LT
I asked you to explain the <b>circumstances</b> under which you imagine, socialism will come to fruition. I did not ask you about the means by which this might happen. The circumstances and the means are two different things
I will vote for a genuine socialist candidate where there is one to vote for. Where there is not I will write “world socialism” across my ballot. A spoilt ballot contrary to myth is not a wasted ballot. The vote is important I agree but it is also important not to waste it on voting for a capitalist party as you advocate
The fact that you can say “There are a number of emerging socialist countries that have done that over the last century, and they have all done that incrementally.” tells me that there is vast gulf in our understanding of what constitute socialism.
There are no “socialist countries” and there never were any. Capitalism is global but it takes different forms/ You are using the term “socialism” in the Leninist sense to signify a form of “state capitalist monopoly” (Lenin’s words).
The SPGB uses the term socialism in its pre-Leninist or Marxist sense to means a stateless classless wageless and marketless alternative to capitalism. A synonym for communism. The SPGB is fundamentally opposed to Leninism, its obnoxious vanguardist outlook and the state capitalist agenda it has historically served
Arguing from the philosophy of idealism is proof of not understanding socialism. Marx’s work is philosophically based on the philosophy of materialism, which is rooted in relativism, not idealism. The idea of lessor or greater is an example of relativism, not idealism. Hence, if you are suggesting that you should not vote based on the idea of lesser (or greater) in the name of holding out for the “ideal”, then you are not a socialist. In other words, there is nothing “ideal”, everything is relative.
Bullshit LT
If workers dont understand or want socialism you cannot realise or bring about socialism. Period. The revolution by its very nature has to be a conscious socialist revolution . That is the ABC of Marxism. Promoting an understanding of the kind of society to replace capitalism has got nothing to do with idealism. You dont understand what idealism means
I note you continue to evade my point that voting for the “lesser evil” almost invariably prepares the ground for the “greater evil” to eventually come to power because the former will invariably fail to live up to the expectations of its followers
Examples aside. Surely you can agree that hypothetically, however unlikely it may be, there could be a situation where, in the absence of a significant amount of people who would vote for socialism, voting for one capitalist party instead of another could be the most advantageous thing to do for a socialist? (Perhaps one party wants to outlaw socialism for example)
DJP
All that will do is to perpetuate indefinitely the very circumstance in which there will continue to be an absence of a significant amount of people who would vote for socialism.
There is no way of getting round this. Voting for a capitalist party however reluctantly or half heartedly means endorsing capitalism and emboldening the forces of capitalism We have to take moral responsibility for our own actions
That aside if there is not significant amount of people who would vote for socialism then why should socialists bother voting for some capitalist political party seeing as its not going to make much difference anyway? Its not worth the effort and whatever good it might hypothetically achieve is more than outweighed by its negative impact on the socialist cause, pushing it even further down the path of insignificance, demoralisation and eventual oblivion.
Fine if that is not an issue with you but it emphatically is with me. I’m buggered if I am going to allow allow some seedy capitalist outfit operated by a bunch of career politicians take precedence or priority over a genuine socialist political organisation when it comes to the vote
LT
Firstly lets get real here. The number of socialists in the US – those who understand and advocate socialism in the sense that we are talking about here (not left wing advocates of more state intervention aka state capitalism) is minuscule. Consequently our attitude towards Biden’s capitalist party which we oppose ( just as we oppose Trump’s capitalist party) is not really going to make any difference as to whether Trump continued in power or not.
Maybe if the socialist movement was much larger it would make a slight difference but I presume that, even then, you would continue supporting a capitalist party likes Biden’s rather than support the socialist party on the grounds that it is more important to keep somebody like Trump out of power than advance the cause of socialism.
This brings me to my second point concerning your statement “Socialism would never come to fruition with your idea of radical, overnight change” . It would be highly instructive to learn from you what precisely are the circumstances under which, you imagine, socialism will come to fruition in that case
See, according to you it is vital that workers support the lesser capitalist evil (Biden) in order to keep the great capitalist evil (Trump) out of power. But what you dont seem to grasp at all is that it was the precisely dismal failure of the previous lesser capitalist evil (in your terms) – namely, Obama – to address the problems that workers faced that led to huge numbers of them, angry and resentful at the way the Establishment had screwed them over, to turn (however misguidedly) to the populist and allegedly anti-establishment figure of Trump instead. In this way, the lesser capitalist evil ALWAYS creates the conditions for the greater capitalist evil to eventually come to power. Disillusionment is baked into the very nature of capitalists politics
You say that with my attitude , “Trump would be in power for another 4 years: no more health care for tens of millions, no green deal, no social services, no environmental protections whatsoever, etc” I suspect this is probably a gross exaggeration at least in part but are you seriously maintaining that under Biden we can look forward to all these deficiencies being remedied? They certainly were not under Trumps predecessor, Obama
If Biden is not going to remedy then then how can you be sure that in four years time the workers will not turn to another Trump like figure to vote into power having become completely disillusioned with Biden?
In the other hand if Biden will be able to solve these and a multitude of other problems – that is, if capitalism can be reformed in the way that you imagine it could – then what, frankly is the point of striving to bring “socialism into fruition”? If capitalism can satisfactorily address the problems you refer to given the political will of politicians to make this happen, then there is surely no point in looking for an alternative to capitalism is there?
EITHER WAY, then, according to the logic of your own way of thinking there can NEVER be any circumstances under which it would be appropriate to vote for or advocate socialism instead of supporting one or other capitalist political party like the Democrats
In which case why even pretend to be interested in “bringing socialism to fruition”? Why not just be honest about it and admit that the limits of your political horizons extend no further than capitalism and the project of reforming capitalism? Why not just concede that you are basically just some kind of liberal no doubt with good intentions at heart but ultimately not really interested in socialism at all?
Lunacy. Trump is re-elected and life becomes exponentially worse for labour, not to mention the planet. Your argument is that “if I don’t get my way, I’m not voting”. Let me say to you that you will never get your way and you will always have the enemy in power with that juvenile attitude, at least in the US. Time to grow up.
Nice try at completely evading the point LT and then you have the nerve to call AJ a “Trumper” for attacking the so called Democrats and their record in office. As if we dont equally attack Trump and all other representatives of capitalism.
The irony is that it is with attitudes such as the one you have expressed here that we will always have the enemy in power. The “enemy” is capitalism and its ruling class and here you are openly soliciting support for one faction of its ruling class, Wall Street’s favourite son – Joe Biden.
Of course we will “never get our way” – bring about socialism – while fellow workers like you continue to succumb to this pathetic self-defeating lesser evil argument you peddle here. This is a merry-go-round going nowhere which you want us to remain perpetually stuck on. Lesser evils ALWAYS prepare the ground for greater evils to emerge in due course and vice versa. That is the nature of capitalist politics: it is cyclical. That is because all capitalist politicians will inevitably fail to serve the interests of the working class and will inevitably disillusion and disenchant their supporters. You can’t operate capitalism in any other way.
So it looks like you’ve got the capitalist government you’ve wanted LT. It seems very likely that Biden will indeed shortly become the next President. I hope you are thrilled at the prospect
Trump will disappear into the history books but what of the workers under a Biden capitalist regime? Why do you think millions upon millions of them have just supported Trump for whatever deluded reason? They voted for Trump because they were screwed over by the previous Democratic Party regime (they would have been equally screwed over had it been the Republicans in power)
And so the merry-go-round will continue going round. A Biden government will simply prepare the ground for another populist Trump-like figure to emerge as workers become increasing disillusioned with Biden as they assuredly will.
Make no mistake about it – you are contributing to this farce of perpetuating capitalism by your support of the apparent less-evil option . Come back in four years when hopefully you will have learnt the lesson that it had all been a complete waste of time, when the merry-go-round goes round one more time and some Trump Mark two figure assumes power
You, LT, and others who think like you will have to bear a direct responsibility for that outcome by voting now for what you consider to be the lesser evil
Steve Bannon, Trump’s former chief fascist advisor, is talking about beheading Fauci and Wray for “not getting with the program”.
Bannon is an irrelevant nutcase headed for oblivion. Why do you attach so much importance to these people?
In other words, you are saying “vote Trump” and make a statement, which is equivalent to cutting your nose off to save your face. No one said that Biden will represent labour. Far from it. But there are no choices for labour on the ballot. You don’t get it. Whining about that fact gets you nowhere at best. Btw, you still haven’t said who you would vote for.
“Vote Trump”????? How on earth did you arrive at such conclusion? Surely, its pretty obvious what the socialist response is . You dont vote for ANY capitalist party or politician – neither Trump nor Biden. If there is no socialist on the ballot, dont vote or spoil your ballot.
At least that way you dont put yourself in the ridiculous position of urging workers to vote for Biden and then whinging when the Biden regime starts behaving as every capitalist government must when you have actively connived in putting this regime in power. Such unprincipled opportunism is a sure fire way to lose any credibility among workers who will suffer the consequences of a Biden regime just as they did under the Trump regime
If you think Trump is better than Biden or even equal to Biden, then you haven’t been paying attention over the last 4 years.
LT
It is not a question of worse of whether Trump is better or worse than the forthcoming Biden regime. You are completely missing the point here.
Even if a future Biden regime is marginally better than the previous Trump regime it will screw the workers over big time. In fact this is one of the reasons why Trumpist populism become as prominent as it did (and this wont disappear with the disappearance of Trump himself). Workers, particularly those in the American rustbelt , felt they had been badly let down by the “Establishment” and the Democrats. Trump cynically played his anti-establishment card for all that it was worth and it worked up to a point precisely for that reason
This basic resentment of workers towards what is called the Establishment will not disappear under Biden and will in all likelihood increase in intensity. If you cannot see that this presents a massive problem for those on the Left who urged us to vote for Biden on the grounds that he would be – allegedly – the lesser evil then its is difficult to know what else to say.
Having urged workers to “vote Biden” how are are you then going to present yourself as a credible critic of the regime once it inevitably starts screwing the workers over as it will from Day One. You got the government you actively campaigned for and the workers will neither forget or forgive you for that
Wanna-be fascist leader Trump has now told his brown shirt stooges that he has no plans to concede even if the path to victory is blocked. Those claiming that Trump represents labour are fascists trying to portray themselves as socialists.
LT
I dont think anything is going to come of this. Wild and fanciful speculations on the part of some on the Left of a “fascist” coup by Trump are going prove completely unfounded. He may double down on the threat of litigation in some states but he is increasingly looking like he is finished and defeated. I think the CNN anchor person, Anderson Cooper, put it in a nutshell:
“That is the President of the United States, the most powerful person in the world, and we see him like an obese turtle on his back flailing in the hot sun, realising his time is over.”
As we speak more and more prominent members of the Republic Party are distancing themselves from Trump appalled by his demented and unsubstantiated ravings of widespread electoral fraud. Barring some unexpected miraculous turn of events the Trump regime is over. Its history.
The problem now for all those Leftist who urged us – unlike the WSM – to vote Biden as the supposed “less evil” is – how are they are going to reconcile this with the fact that we are almost certainly going to have in place a thoroughly obnoxious new capitalist administration headed by Biden that will screw over the workers just as ruthlessly and cynically as the previous Trump administration did.
Those leftists who fell for the phony “lesser evil” argument are now going to find their credibility much diminished once they start whining about the very regime that they had urged us to vote for!
ZJW
This bit from the above article was interesting:
<b>The Israeli embassy in Berlin also released a statement over social media on October 8 referencing the International Holocaust Rememberance Alliance, or IHRA, definition of antisemitism </b><b> that considers anti-Zionism a form of antisemitism: </b>
“There should be no tolerance for the delegitimization of Israel and antisemitism in Germany today. Hosting a workshop whose title already negates Israel’s livelihood is an embrace of antisemitism.
The IHRA working definition for antisemitism adopted by the federal government cites the denial of the Jewish people’s right to self-determination as an example.
This series of events falls under this definition and should be recognized for what it is: anti-Zionist and antisemitic.”Two questions arise which should perhaps be put to pro-Zionist groups to explain
- What about non Jewish citizens of the Israeli state? Can there be such a thing as an non-Jewish citizen in the Israeli state if that state is literally help to be the embodiment of the “Jewish people’s right to self-determination”? Also, how is this different from South Africa’s apartheid project when “South Africa” was perceived to be the embodiment of the political aspirations of white people only while Blacks where urged or compelled to fulfil their own political aspirations in the black homelands comprising a small fraction of the area of South Africa
MORE SIGNIFICANTLY…
2. What is the view of these Zionist groups towards socialists who oppose ALL nationalisms whatsoever and the delusional concept of a “people’s right to self determination” expressed in the form of a nation state? Since by definition this does not discriminate between people or different ethnic groups, how can socialist opposition to Zionist nationalism be construed as “anti Semitic” when it equally opposes every other kind of nationalism as well and works instead towards the creation of single world without borders or states
I would be really interested to hear how some pro-Zionist group might go about responding to these two questions. Perhaps we should test the water…
