[Marxism] Obama: the American Dream

[Aaron Aarons]

At 14:04 -0500 2008/11/24, Charles Brown wrote:
>Joaquin Bustelo :
>
>I think Louis does comrades a disservice by the way he is conducting this debate. The ORIGINAL point in dispute is whether and who to vote for is a TACTICAL question, as I maintain, or a question of "principle" where the are "class lines" that must never, ever be crossed, and doing so is like committing a mortal sin in the Catholic Church, except that in the revolutionary movement there's no such thing as the sacrament of confession
>
>^^
>CB: Yes, I have long said that support or non-support for the Democratic Party in the US in a given election is a tactical, not principled question for Leninists.
>
>The anti-DP hardline is dogmatic, in the sense of elevating a tactical question to the level of a principled question.

NO! Opposition to the Democratic Party -- one of the two right wings of the imperialist-capitalist party - IS a question of principle. That doesn't absolutely rule out ever, ever supporting a candidate running in a Democratic primary or as a Democrat, but it would have to be a situation where the candidacy of that nominal democrat is sharply opposed (from the left, obviously) to the capitalist owners of the Democratic Party, and where that candidate can be expected to maintain that oppositional stance whether elected or not. Perhaps McKinney, while still a Democrat, was such a candidate, but I can't think of any others offhand.

It's interesting to note that the CPUSA, who usually argues for supporting Democrats based on the particular situation, seem to always discover such a particular situation that justifies such support THIS time. For them, SUPPORT for the capitalist party supported by the pro-capitalist trade union bureaucracy seems to be a principle -- one of the few that they really stick to.

 - Aaron