[Marxism] A workers revolt is inevitable. Whether it succeeds depends on all of us and in belief in our own united power.

[Bonnie Weinstein]

On 9/3/07 7:59 PM, "Anthony Boynton" <northbogota at yahoo.com> wrote:

"It is also an internally anti-Democratic organization
which functions on the principle of minority rule
(consensus) as pointed out by the article Louis
Project posted.

"It is true, as the article posted by Louis Project
points out, that the Demo-Greens are working hard to
sabotage any possibility of the Greens taking votes
away from the democrats in 2008. It is also true that
the very antidemocratic, minority rule structure of
the  Greens makes this sabotage easier for them."

Thank's, Anthony, for pointing this out to me. I didn't know what kind of
structure the Greens had. You know, I would almost go along with you if it
weren't for the fact that the Greens will lead voters down the path of
lesser-evil support for the Democratic Party candidate--any of whom are
totally repulsive. From Hillory's war voting history to O'Bama's solution to
poverty--"Black men step up and support your families" in the face of fifty
percent unemployment rates for Black men from 18-25!

Mark said I didn't criticize the Democratic party and only picked on the
Greens? I am picking on the Greens because they lead people to vote for the
Democrats--war mongers; murders of children; profiteers from the blood of
the innocent; vampires of the poor and disenfranchised; despotic leaders in
cooperation and agreement with each other that the U.S. Should be on
top--economically, militarily and in every way. Both parties agree to
that--demand that and are united against the masses of the world to attain
that at any cost as long as the cost is NOT to themselves! I declare the
system of capitalism and the parties that support it evil! Do I make myself
clear? I hope that Mark will take this as a criticism of the Democratic
party.

If there were the forces mobilized, who had a united program to run an
independent, working-class campaign that ran independent of the capitalist
political parties; and if they were strong enough to take over the Green
Party and turn it into a mass, democratically organized and run organization
dedicated to staying independent and it really became filled up with a
majority of real workers who want to organize independently, then, maybe
then, your arguments would be correct.

Unfortunately, until the Greens stop leading people down the path of defeat
and human destruction by leading them to the parties of the class
oppressors, I can't be a part of them.

Look, you can't say, "well, the Greens, at least, are not Democrats and, I
don't want to be a Democrat because they are not for any of the things I am
for and most of the party leaders differ only slightly with Bush and the
Republicans. They have voted for the Pentagon budget, the war budget,
homeland security, spying on citizens, torture, the Patriot act, and on and
on."

Then you say, "well, I know the Greens are controlled by a minority. They
are not democratic because the act on consensus which limits the scope of
agreement. They have consistently led voters to vote for Democrats in states
where they thought the votes were close enough, so that a vote for the Green
candidate would cause a Republican to win in place of a Democrat."

For the same reason you can't join the Democratic party, you shouldn't join
the Greens--a party that leads you to the Democratic party and actually
steps aside so they can win! Who do you think your fooling?

We need a party that leads to peace, freedom, democracy, equality, liberty,
and justice for all--especially economic justice because that's the cure for
all wars!

You can't go down a different path if you continue to follow the same path.
Lesser-evil politics gets us more evil!

The world is in the worst crisis it has ever been in on every
front--poverty, war, environmental destruction, economic inequality at a
height never seen before! We, the people, have never been more divided.
Parents have stood by to see their children have their earning potential cut
in half with two and multi-tiered labor contracts. And vastly disappearing
labor contracts. 

The most important thing we can do is to clarify the basic conflict. That is
the first step of good leadership. The self interests of capitalism is to
maximize profits which they make by claiming as theirs, the difference
between what they actually pay workers and the money they collect off the
sale of their product or service that workers create or perform. This
figure--profit--is usually 300 to 500 times the entire cost of
production--worker's pay and benefits included.

Whether we like to admit it or not--this is a choice between them and
us--between capitalist barbarism or humanitarian socialism based upon the
democratic control of the economy by the workers of the world and their
concrete ability to change production from that of production for profit to
production for all human and planetary needs and wants because they do the
work.

Now, this is a list of Marxists, at least for the most part. Of course we
have to talk about the role of the working class--this working
class--today's working class made up of the vestiges of the old, organized
labor movement who are undergoing out and out organizational, economic and
benefit-package slaughter; and their children who are vastly unorganized,
unemployed and underemployed, undereducated and miseducated; living only a
"virtual life" of movies and video games while being locked up in
institutionalized and distressed schools; where jail and debilitating drug
addiction has become a rite of passage with many of them; with them and
their parents burdened with a brutal combination of poverty and debt and
with the rug already pulled out from under them by the multi-tiered
contracts their parent's union bureaucracy carefully crafted in cooperation
with the bosses! 

Meanwhile, the rich are getting richer and the gap between them and the rest
of the world is exponentially rising! The Democrats and the Republicans--all
the capitalist politicians--are being paid by them--would not exist without
being one of the wealthiest themselves or being in the pocket of one of the
wealthiest. 

If you think that the working class is ignorant of everything then you have
just given up and are, yourself, vying for a kinder and gentler
capitalism--given up on the socialist revolution as well as on Godot. Now,
that is a fantasy! 

The liberals in the Democratic party are there so that they can prove that
they can bring more people into their party than the conservative wing of
the party. The Greens have functioned (whether intentionally or not) as a
pressure and support group for the liberal wing of the Democratic party.

Do you think they will voluntarily share their wealth? Do you think they
will finally see the light and provide free healthcare and education for
all? Do you think they will end the never-ending War on Terror? Do you think
they will end the War in Iraq and Afghanistan and all the other little wars
they are carrying out around the world to secure more wealth and more profit
from more workers for themselves using us as fodder?

We will have to take care of these things ourselves, independently,
rationally, humanitarianly, democratically and in the interests of all of
us.

The Antiwar Movement:

If we are well organized independently; if we can mobilize masses of people
into action in the streets, in the workplaces, in schools to end the war
now. To bring the troops home now, we can force them to end the war now.
This is attainable before the revolution.

That not only would it be a tremendous victory, it would be a tremendous and
important example to set for all who struggle for freedom and justice. That
by uniting together independently toward a goal we can achieve it. Not by
electing certain liberal candidates--we will forever be embroiled in battle
with one another if the antiwar movement got involved in the election
campaigns (of course, individuals are free to support or promote any
candidate they wish but the coalition should always refrain from taking a
side on particular candidates. Ballot initiative against the war are a
different matter. We should support and encourage a popular vote against the
war since that is the basis of our agreement in the antiwar movement.)

The antiwar movement is not the labor movement, it's not a party. It's
purpose should be to bring all those opposed to the war--for an end to the
war now and bring the troops home now--to come together and plan ongoing
mass actions and organizing to express our demand to every candidate in
every party in every election!

It's purpose should be to stay in the streets and to bring this country to a
standstill until the government and the politicians who represent them do
what the majority demands! That's real democracy in action! And that's the
way to get things done! Not electing this or that politician.

I feel I have made my points backwards, forwards and upside down--the
question is still one of class and which class will ultimately win the war.
One class, the capitalists are a tiny minority while the other class, the
working class and their allies constitute the overwhelming majority of
humanity on the planet.

We, the majority, did not declare this war nor any of the wars, we are
simply the victims of a class system that puts profit over people. The
profits of the tiny minority of capitalists are more precious to them than
all of our lives put together. That is why they will resort to pre-emptive
war; indiscriminate bombing; mass murder of the innocent; occupation and
incarceration; the waste and plunder of their own troops even the permanence
of nuclear war; to preserve their wealth and power. This is our reality. It
is up to us to change it.

Together we can disarm them; claim their wealth for the good of all and for
solving human problems; and disarm their weapons of mass destruction. It
ain't going to happen by supporting them in the hopes they will change their
"hearts." 

Money is what matters to them above all else. And it costs a lot of money to
keep the masses ignorant of these facts--to keep them divided and
antagonistic to one another and in competition with one another--against
undocumented workers; against all immigrants except for the rich and famous,
of course, against teenagers, against single parents, against high-school
drop-outs, against the drug addicted, against smokers, against different
racial and ethnic backgrounds, and on and on.

The mass media--in one breath--will point out the vast extent of poverty in
the Black community and at the same time, demonize and criminalize young
Black men for not "stepping up" and supporting their kids when they know
dammed well that both the mothers and the fathers of these poor kids both
live in poverty and deprivation, in slums and in sickly FEMA trailers with
no hope of getting out of their predicament--it's getting worse, not better
out there, folks.

If that were not bad enough, pharmaceutical companies are profiting off the
psychological burden poverty has placed upon people. They are making
billions of dollars off of proscribing "behavioral drugs" to unhappy
children--children cooped up in slums, in broken-down and over crowded
schools, with stressed out, overworked and underpaid parents. It's no wonder
the kids get hyper-active, depressed, have mood-swings, who wouldn't in a
life of such stress and uncertainty and security? And think of it, the
depths of poverty here pails to poverty in the so-called, third-world
countries or those in the war zones.

Instead of frolicking in a peaceful and natural environment and exploring
the world with eyes wide open and vast resources available to them, our
children are being drugged up and shut down and trained to submit to
authority.

Capitalism fouls everything up and destroys the future. It's real and it's
trying to get what it can while it can from us. Capitalism is our enemy--not
the bad capitalists--the system, capitalism.

What can we concretely do in the meantime, before the mass radicalization of
the world's working class--yes--it will happen and we can prepare.

We can organize and educate against the war. We can show how workers are
paying for the costs of a war that only benefits the bosses. We can organize
them into the antiwar movement to end the war now and bring the troops home
now.

We can demand that there be a progressive tax structure, i.e., tax the rich
not the poor; money for human needs not war. We should fight to establish a
graduated income tax where only incomes above, say, $100-200 thousand then
tax them according to graduated income levels above that--the more money you
have the higher the percentage of your income you pay.

This is where the cost of healthcare should come from--from the rich, not
the poor. We should fight for free, universal (and by that I mean dental to
eyeglasses to podiatry, etc.) healthcare for all paid for by the
progressive, graduated income tax.

We can demand that businesses--corporations, etc. open their financial books
so that we can see how much profit they have made and into whose pockets it
has ended up. We must demand to see what their real expenses are, what are
their compensations for their executives, etc. so we can determine what a
fair exchange between profit and labor costs really should be. Should
workers go hungry or without medical care while the CEOs of the companies
they work for are getting multi-million-dollar bonuses?

We can insist that all the money being spent on the military industrial
complex--the trillions of tax dollars that are spent out of the pockets of
the poor to support a war industry that itself is a cash cow for top
American corporations--be spent, instead, on solving the human causes of
war--poverty and inequity in the basic distribution of wealth in a society.

We can call for a shorter work-week with no cut in pay instead of layoffs
and there are many other powerful transitional demands that we can raise
that put workers first above profits. We can begin to organize ourselves
into a real force for the kind of changes that will make life better for all
working people on an equal basis.

What will the capitalists do without all their money? Start working and
contributing to the wealth of all instead of stealing it and amassing
obscene amounts of it for themselves, personally--more than they could ever
spend--more than what most countries actually have. It's most unfair and,
therefore, most unstable. That's the science part of it. That is what makes
a workers revolt inevitable.

O.K. I'll stop now. I've said all I can say.


Comradely,

Bonnie Weinstein, Socialist Viewpoint Magazine, www.socialistviewpoint.org
(The September/October issue is out and should be posted soon...bw)














>  
> I would like to address the whole discussion of the
> 2008 elections on this list, especially the remarks
> made by Mark Lause, Bonnie Weinstein and Jim
> Farmelant.
> 
> Whether or not 2008 marks the end of the Green Party
> depends to one degree or another on what people on
> this list do.
> 
> I think Mark Lause has the right idea. I support his
> remarks strongly.
> 
> As the article posted by Louis Project demonstrates,
> the Demo-Greens are out to sink the Green Party for a
> second election in a row. This could be fatal to the
> Green Party.
> 
> It would be a major blow to everyone who is against
> the war in the Middle East.
> 
> Why? 
> 
> Bonnie Weinstein argues that the Greens support the
> Democratic Party, so who cares what happens to them.
> 
> Jim Farmelant argues that the winner take all
> electoral system in the USA, combined with the
> pragmatic spirit there, prevents third parties from
> forming unless there is a major social/ political
> crisis. The implication, if not the intent, of his
> remarks seems to be, "So why do anything now, history
> will just take its course when it pleases."
> 
> Here's why both arguments are off, and Why the Green
> Party is important for the antiwar movement.
> 
> The Green Party is not simply the sum of its
> activists,as Bonnie Weinstein would have us think.
> 
> It is the ONLY ballot qualified party in many states
> which has  a political program which is
> environmentalist, feminist, anti-racist, and anti-war.
> 
> In other words, it is the only ballot qualified
> alternative for antiwar voters in 2008 AGAINST the
> Democrats and Republicans.
> 
> This fact is important for two reasons.
> 
> First is that millions, tens of millions, are becoming
> disgusted with the war, AND the hypocrisy of the
> politicians of both ruling class parties about endnig
> the war.
> 
> What are they going to do in 2008? Probably not
> demonstrate because the majority of ACTIVISTS are TO
> THEIR RIGHT on the issue of war.
> 
> The majority of activists are going to be working for
> DEMOCRATIC PARTY candidates election campaigns.
> 
> Those new antiwar voters maybe are going to light up a
> joint, pop open a beer, and watch TV.
> 
> But if they had the chance to vote for an ANTIWAR
> candidate, they have a good chance of taking a half
> hour to walk down to the polling booth to flip the
> bird to Hillary and that fat Republican actor (or
> whoever those parties come up as their candidates).
> 
> Who can provide them with an antiwar candidate. ONLY
> the Greens in 2008.
> 
> Why? Because it is very expensive and difficult to
> place independent candidates or new political parties
> on the ballot in the two-party system USA.
> 
> What would happen is the Greens run an antiwar
> campaign and get 5 million votes?
> 
> How many of those voters would become political
> activists after the elections? If 0.1% did that would
> be 5,000 people. Where would they go, the Green Party
> naturally. How would that change the Green Party.
> 
> It depends.
> 
> What would happen if they joined the Green Party and
> found out that the best organizers of the campaign
> which attracted them had been the good comrades of
> Bonnie Weinstein's honest, principled little
> organization? Some of them would join BOTH Bonnie's
> little group, and the Greens. The same would happen
> with any sincere left organization or even group of
> friends who seriously worked for the election
> campaign.
> 
> The first is that the Green Par
> 
> It is also an internally anti-Democratic organization
> which functions on the principle of minority rule
> (consensus) as pointed out by the article Louis
> Project posted.
> 
> It is true, as the article posted by Louis Project
> points out, that the Demo-Greens are working hard to
> sabotage any possibility of the Greens taking votes
> away from the democrats in 2008. It is also true that
> the very antidemocratic, minority rule structure of
> the  Greens makes this sabotage easier for them.
> 
> But Mark Lause's suggestion of independent campaign
> committees is a way to fight back. The new activists
> who are attracted to the Greens will NOT be attracted
> to the do-nothing, sit on your hands and everyone
> elses hands leaders, they will be attracted to the
> campaigners.
> 
> If the Green's are truly and finally taken off of the
> ballot in 2008, it will be very expensive, and very
> difficult, to put another left electoral alternative
> on the ballot for 2010.
> 
> The Green Party is a tremendous asset for the left, if
> it would only wake up and see it for what it is. It is
> more valuable than all of the seats on Central Labor
> Councils, all of the unread websites, and all of the
> bank accounts combind of the entire left.
> 
> Use it or lose it. That's what Lenin always said.
> 
> Anthony
> 
> 
> 
> 
>      
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