[Marxism] Demands on the Democrats?

[Joaquin Bustelo]

Mark Lause writes: "Realizing that it may rub some folks the wrong way, I
see absolutely no way in which a Democratic victory in this election will be
in the least better for the masses than a Republican victory.  Neither will
do anything for us.  The Republicans will just be a little snottier and
annoy us with particularly irritating delusional rants and blatantly insane
assertions."

I do not see how it can be seriously maintained that the McCain and Obama
campaigns are presenting the same program. They are both presenting
bourgeois programs, but they are different. 

Moreover, I do not see how it can be seriously maintained that there is
GUARANTEED to be no difference that makes a difference between an Obama
victory and presidency and a McCain victory and presidency. The experience
of African-Americans, I believe, has been that, on average, it does make
SOME difference whether a Black person or a white person occupies a
government position. Not all the difference in the world, and not every
single time, but yes, on average, it DOES make SOME difference. Notice the
voting and turnout patterns in the Black community every time it is
perceived by the community that one of their own people has a chance to take
an office, and especially when it is a tough fight. Blacks mobilize AS A
PEOPLE. 

But even granting for argument's sake that it would make no policy
difference whatsoever, the argument that white folks have ALWAYS has one of
theirs as president and now it's the turn of a Black person sounds good to
me, just on plain egalitarian/anti-racist grounds. But, of course, that is
just another way of saying that it does make a difference, not because of
anything Obama will SURELY do in office, but quite simply because of who he
is.

That, as Nader argues, next year the Democrats will water down or completely
abandon even such meager improvements as they offer working people in their
electoral promises is, I think, a given, or very, very close. But that from
this flows that therefore we must call for a vote AGAINST the Democrat is,
as I think Lenin argues quite convincingly in his pamphlet on the infantile
disorder of ultraleftism in relation to the bourgeois party of social
democracy, a non-sequitur.

Of course, social democracy was a party that arose in the workers movement
and by the time of its consolidation as a bourgeois party, still operated as
party within the workers movement. The Democrats did not arise in the same
way, but Black Democrats do operate as a bourgeois party within the Black
movement. 

Whether and who you vote for in a bourgeois election is a tactical question
that is MOSTLY dependent on what you want to say and who you want to say it
to [or perhaps a better way to put it is what social layer you want to
influence and in what direction], and MOSTLY NOT dependent on narratives
about "class lines" in bourgeois electoral farces and MOST OF ALL not in a
country where the working class has not wakened to independent political
activity in living memory.

Were there to be in this country a much more substantial working class or
socialist political organization than now exists, say the
regrouped/refounded socialist organization of several thousand members that
I believe would be *possible* if the political will existed to create it, I
would consider a position of critical support to the Obama candidacy, with a
message primarily aimed at the Black community and others who identify with
and support the Black Liberation Movement, a reasonable, legitimate and
entirely "permissible" tactical stance. 

What is the message? First and foremost, that we support the Black community
in its decades-long struggle for political inclusion and representation. But
also, just as the election of so many Black city council members and mayors
and congress people has meant, at most, minor improvements, not the sweeping
changes Black people are trying to get, so, too, will Obama not bring about
real equality and liberation. And that's because he's a Democrat, a party
dominated by the oppressors, and so on. 

It probably would not be the tactical stance I would *advocate* or *favor*
in such a group. That because Nader is polling 2-6% and McKinney about half
that or a little less (when they bother to include her in the polls). What
these poll numbers say to me is that Nader, at least, and probably McKinney
also, though to a lesser extent, have a mass audience. And it is probably
more effective to take the straight-up direct message of political
independence through such a campaign to receptive layers of working people
than through a more convoluted, indirect in terms of message, tactic of
critical support to Obama. But I would not consider the idea of critical
support to Obama an outrage, a violation of principle, nor any of that other
nonsense. 

However, if Nader or McKinney were polling in the double digits, including
in the Black community, at THIS stage of the campaign, with little more than
a month to go (rather than Nader increasingly being reduced to 2-3%, and
McKinney to 1%, if that), meaning things like one of them would be included
in some debates and would get significantly more coverage and press
attention, under THOSE circumstances I WOULD consider a tactic of critical
support to Obama to be a tremendous blunder bordering on the criminal,
although even then the message of the socialists supporting Nader and/or
McKinney would need to take a very respectful, sensitive stance towards the
hopes and aspirations of the Black community in relation to Obama.

Does this mean I am willing to let the largely farcical polling done around
bourgeois elections to decisively influence his tactics, and whether to
support a McKinney or a Nader or "support" (like a rope supports a hanging
man, as Lenin said) an Obama? ABSOLUTELY. Yes I would.

WHY? Because politics is NOT about "positions" or "principles" but about
social forces and layers in motion. And tactical questions are always
concrete, and by their nature, the answers to them CANNOT be deduced from
abstract "principles." 

What many comrades think of as "principles" are involved, but tactics ALSO
involve judgment about how different social layers are moving, which layers
we should seek to influence, and so on. 

Please notice this discussion of tactics is hypothetical: it is about the
tactical course that might be followed by a united socialist propaganda
league with thousands of members, and probably dominating the field of
radical politics. As for the really existing socialist organizations in the
United States, the tactic I would generally advocate be considered, --and
most of all by the members of the various churches of latter-day Leninists--
it to immediately call a congress and unanimously adopt a resolution that
the most important contribution they can make to the bright communist future
of humanity and the causes and movements of working and oppressed peoples
here and internationally is to dissolve.

As for the situation we face as individuals or small circles, we need to
remember the nature of the November 4 vote. These are 50 separate, virtually
every one winner take all, state elections for electoral college votes. Thus
for example, in California, it is very hard to make the case for conscious
radicals or socialists who understand the strategic importance of political
independence to call for a vote for Obama, even if you ardently hope he
defeats McCain. He will win that state no matter what. It is much more
important to send a message in support of political independence and
preserve the ballot status of independent parties.

But in a state like Georgia, assuming Obama continues to make gains and has
(as I believe) more support than the opinion polls register, it is hard to
make that same argument, first because it may well be true that the vote you
cast will be meaningful in determining the outcome of the election.

In terms of more choices, the only "third party" on the ballot will be Barr.
And write-in candidates have to be officially registered or their votes
won't even be *counted,* just discarded as spoiled ballots. And even when
the independent or third party candidates ARE officially registered (as
Nader-Camejo were in Georgia in 2004) the votes often aren't counted (as was
the case in my precinct in 2004, where Nader got credited 0 votes even
though I wrote him in, and I'm sure others did too). 

Also, in this state we have ultra-tamperable Diebold touch-screen voting
machines with no paper trail, which a few years ago gave the victory to
Republicans in the gubernatorial and senate races against Democrat
incumbents who had statistically significant leads in public opinion polls
the weekend before the election. Then there's the "open primary," where
white republicans in a place like DeKalb County get to unite with white
Democrats to deny the Black community its right to political representation
by knocking out someone like Cynthia McKinney in the primary. Not to mention
that in 2000, one Georgia county had fully ONE FIFTH of the presidential
vote not included in the tally, significantly MORE than ANY Florida County.
Or that the guy who won the sheriff's contest in my county a few years ago
was "bullet balloted" out of taking office -- assassinated in his front yard
at the instigation (if I remember right) of the previous sheriff.

So a REAL politically educational discussion about November 4 here in
Georgia doesn't necessarily revolve around Obama versus Nader, who to vote
for, but the need to institute honest, democratic, one person one vote,
elections in this state.

Like I said, tactics are concrete.

Joaquin