[Marxism] An analysis of the DP convention that works better

[Marvin Gandall]

Artesian writes:

>I disagree.  Things HAVE worked.  And everything that has worked has been
> outside the Democratic Party, and outside the commitment to the election
> process.  We can't just ignore the fact that the Democratic Party is all
> about getting people elected.  And we can't ignore the fact that the
> things
> that was accomplished in industrial unionism and in the black emancipation
> struggles were accomplished by direct action.
============================
The epic battles for union rights and civil rights involved both mass
moblization and legislative action by Democratic administrations - the
Wagner Act under Roosevelt and the Civil Rights Act under Johnson. Both
pieces of legislation fell short of what the unions and the black movement
wanted, but each was welcomed as by them as an important advance.

Unions, women, blacks, immigrants, gays, environmentalists, the antiwar and
other reform movements have petitioned, demonstrated and engaged in other
forms of direct action primarily to exert pressure on Congress to realize
their demands through legislation. While there is much debate about the
means of struggle and the laws which issue from it, they're part of the same
process and aren't counterposed to each other.

While Trotskyists and other left tendencies have criticized these movements
for campaigning for the Democrats during elections, they do so because they
see the party as their instrument, however flawed, for advancing and
defending their programs against the Republicans in the executive,
legislative, administrative, and judicial branches of government. The
European and other popular movements have the same relationship to the
social democratic parties elsewhere.