Happy Slave-owners revolt day, everyone. Remember, the
British Empire abolished slavery in 1831, 34 years before the U. S. All other
things being equal (a large caveat), had the American Revolution failed,
slavery would have ended 34 years sooner.
I’ve skipped a couple of weeks in my weekly blog because
after Orlando and slogging through the acrimonious divisions in the Sanders
movement, I didn’t know what to say. I was discouraged, I suppose also because
I kept holding out the hope that Bernie could win the nomination.
But discouragement is one of those weapons the ruling class
uses to keep us oppressed. All it means is the revolution isn’t happening as quickly as
we wish it would. But, comrades, look how far we’ve come! Our movement has
profoundly shifted the political dialogue in this country to the left, but not
just to the left, more like away from oligarchy toward democracy. We won’t win
everything, they’ll be some painful losses, but the Democratic Party Platform
will be the most progressive since the 1930s. But the platform is always
ignored, I hear you saying. It usually is, but it doesn’t have to be. The
continuously mobilized Sanders movement can rally the people around the most
important of those planks.
Moving the political dialogue to the left was what Bernie
set out to do. In his years of activist experience, he (finally) figured out
that the Democratic Party is where the action is, where the power is. Our
movement is now in a position to take over leadership of the Democratic Party
within 4 years, the largest organization of any kind in the U. S. Again, this
was clearly Bernie’s objective from the beginning.
It’s difficult to watch the ultraleft dogma of the Bernie or
Bust movement attempt to destroy the powerful unity that Bernie inspired. I
know, I’ve been there. It happens in every movement, we get to a certain point
and then we turn inward and self-destruct. I was a part of this phenomenon as
the anti-war movement imploded into warring factions of self-righteous sects
with no support from the people. I was at the SDS convention in 1969 in Chicago
when the splits exploded on the movement. I’ve seen this happen too many times.
In France, it was called the Thermadorian Reaction.
So I look you in the eyes, Bernie or Bust, and I say: stop
it!
I don’t care who you vote for. A single vote is
insignificant. In California, New York, and other deep blue states, for example, it might make perfect
sense to vote for Jill Stein and help the Greens develop a serious presence on the political landscape. But
Ohio, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Nevada? Don’t be stupid. You
don’t vote for the lesser of evils. You vote for the party with a chance of
winning that will interfere the least with our efforts to organize the working
class for our revolution.
Trump will inspire goon squads of white supremacists to use
the border and Black Lives Matter demonstrations as target practice. Trump will
decry the violence but offer the perpetrators support for their legal fees,
which they won’t need because the cops, being a major part of the movement,
will not arrest anyone. Is that what you want?
The strategy is not to abandon the Democratic Party to the
neoliberals, but to take it over and throw the neoliberals out of leadership.
This development is within our grasp. As we move toward our takeover, we must
be ready to pivot toward organizing a new anti-war movement. All those
progressive Hillary supporters are crossing their fingers in hopes she won’t
invade Syria, but chances are she will try. We can stop her and then challenge her
in 2020, having meanwhile interpenetrated ourselves in the county and state organizations of the Party. We need only focus on staying united.
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