“The
People’s Summit,”
I did not
attend this conference, which took place in Chicago on the weekend of June 9-11. But clearly something is still going on in
the wider world of the U.S. left.
All the
‘superstar’ left-liberals were there – Sanders, Greenwald, Klein, Sirota, Van
Jones, Goodman, Piven, McGibben, Glover, Van Heuvel, Frank, Zirin, Jealous,
Zogby. OOOH! There were a high
proportion of actors and actresses too, oddly enough, but given the weight Hollywood has in the
Democratic Party, that would be expected.
We on the ‘hard left’ call these people the ‘soft left,’ as they
straddle the fence between anti-capitalism and pro-capitalism. Their careers would be in the toilet if they
adopted the former, but they can’t help themselves going part of the way. I critically review many of their books
because the intent of this blog is to move normal working-class people beyond
comfortable left-liberalism. But you
can’t do that without ‘intersecting’ with the liberal-left, which does have
valuable things to say.
 |
| Superstars? |
At the Summit, Sanders excoriated
the Democratic Party for losing so many elections and he also refrained from
promising to bring millions into the Democratic fold. Democrats only have their positions of 'power' and winning to cite, so this hits particularly hard for the junior party of the ruling class. However the basic intent of this conference
is to prepare new candidates to run as ‘left’ Democrats, so a level of
sheep-herding is still the basic plan.
Several prospective candidates or winners were on hand. Activity on the left of the Democratic Party
is inevitable in the run up to the formation of an independent, class-based
party, so this turmoil is indicative. It
is possible that a ‘left’ section of the Democrats will split off at some
point.
People’s Party
There was a
counter-trend at the ‘Summit’,
as a section of the conference campaigned for a “People’s Party” by drafting
Bernie Sanders as its leader. This
effort was led by a former Sanders staffer, Nick Brana. The head of National Nurses United (NNU),
Roseann Demoro, endorsed the independent “Draft Bernie” idea, and asked Sanders
from the podium if he would support it.
No answer from Sanders of course. NNU had 1,000 nurses attending out of
the 4,000 total attendees. Brana has
said that even if Sanders doesn’t get on-board, they will go ahead to form a
populist People’s Party. What that will
look like is unknown at present, but it certainly is a step to some kind of
mass opposition party. However, if it
follows Sanders’ program exclusively, it will be born with deformations.
Sanders is problematic at this point. He is the most popular politician in the U.S. (admittedly a low bar) and also the most prominent ‘in-house’ critic of the Democrats, even though he’s not an official Democrat…! Sanders has a standard social-democratic domestic policy with many progressive features, though he seems to be backsliding on socialized medicine right now. He does not support nationalization of rogue industries or essential public industries. Sanders’ foreign policy is an endorsement of imperial and military actions by the U.S. - a symptom of social-patriotism. As anyone politically aware knows, there is a deep economic, social and political connection between U.S. foreign and domestic policy. Without an attack on both, not artificial walling off of one from the other, no progress can be made domestically or internationally.
Social Patriotism
Sanders’
roots are in social-democratic practice, which is social-patriotic in
essence. This schizophrenic bifurcation
allows Sanders to become popular more easily, but ultimately bars the road to
any significant social progress in the U.S. - not to mention the rest of
the world. Jeremy Corbyn of the British
Labour Party understands the links between foreign and domestic policy, as does
Jean-Luc Melenchon of the French “Unbowed France” Party (which was endorsed by
nearly all of the French left.) Given left socialism is strong in both organizations, it shows lazy comparisons
between Sanders and Corbyn or Melenchon only go so far. The European left is far ahead of the U.S.
left in this and other respects – as it has always been.
At any rate,
one of the other dividing lines between the soft left and the hard left is the
issue of the Democrats. They are the ‘donkey’
in the room. People bitch about this
being a ‘focus’ all the time, like they are tired of the debate. However, the reason the debate does not go
away is because the Democrats are a failure for workers no matter their
ethnicity, and have been for many, many years.
As the call from the People’s Party advocates went: “…corporate money
is not a distinct, corrupted organ of the (Democratic) party that can be
surgically removed from an otherwise healthy body. Corporate money is
the party.”
The
Labor Party
I’ve
pointed out to people in the labor movement and leftists who want a ‘labor
party’ that the main impulse for independent
political action right now will probably come from outside of the official labor
movement. The AFL-CIO is still deeply in the pocket of
the Democrats unfortunately, but they can be lured away, bit by bit. The Sander’s campaign was part of the ferment
for actual political change in this country – not the Democratic Party Potemkin
Village of ‘change’ and ‘hope,’ but something a bit more real. As the involvement of unions and now the NNU
shows, labor is a key component in this ferment. They ultimately are THE key component to any
revived class struggle against the rich white male billionaires who control
this country now and founded this country 243 years ago.
Intersectionality
“Intersectionality’
– an academic phrase that left-liberals adore – is a concept that only goes
part way to understanding how to move forward.
The reason is that class is not just ‘one among many’ in this mixture,
but the primary intersection. I’ll show
you why. Let us take the “$15 Now” campaign. Ostensibly only an ‘economic
demand,’ if it is won it benefits low-paid workers the most. Those would mostly be black, Latino and
immigrants from Africa
primarily. But as anyone knows, many
white workers also labor for pittances.
So it unites the ‘class’ on an ostensibly economic issue, but actually
attacks the material foundation of racism the most.
The problem
with ‘intersectionality’ is that it is not a materialist approach, and assumes
the oppression of women, gays, black, Latino, indigenous and African labor to
be independent of economics. It assumes
that, instead of the deep profiteering generated by the super-oppression of
non-whites or women, that that oppression is just the result of white people’ s
‘bad ideas’ or meanness or
stupidity. All of this is idealist
claptrap ultimately. Yes, there are
plenty of bad ideas, meanness and stupidity to go around, but racism and sexism
are institutionalized in the U.S.
– by the economy, the courts, the schools, the police, the state – for economic
purposes. It is part of the foundation
of this ‘great Republic” since the beginning. So these bigoted ‘ideas’ ultimately serve the profit
system. “Intersectionality’ as conventionally presented
ignores the whole capitalist profit system and ultimately fails as a way of
understanding how to move forward.
The other
failure of intersectionality is strategic.
For instance, Black oppression cannot be solved by black people
alone. It is actually part of the way
the whole class is divided and weakened.
White workers MATERIALLY lose because of black super-oppression. Just look at conditions in the South or any
industry where cheap labor is employed or where communities are treated brutally
by police or through environmental racism. Police violence is ultimately a form of labor control, for instance.
Instead of appealing to white guilt (something white upper-class
liberals love), appeals to white workers on a grounded MATERIAL basis will be
more successful in fighting racism.
Unions, the most integrated organizations in this country, understand
this. The greatest unity and strength is
to understand that racism hurts everyone but the capitalists. That may be a cliché, but it has definitely
been ignored. It doesn’t ignore
super-oppression of non-whites, it only shows how the whole society is
affected. And that should be the real
goal of ‘intersectionality’ instead of burying economics.
Resistance & Revolution
The People’s
Summit
was sponsored by NNU, “Our Revolution,” DSA, UE, Move-On, Presente, Our Walmart
and others. These are groups that claim
to be part of the “Resistance” to Trump.
Perhaps they include that other ‘resistor’ Hillary Clinton and perhaps
they don’t. But if they work in the
Democratic Party, she and her allies are unfortunate comrades. The term
‘Resistance’ comes from the French Resistance in WW2 – which was led by
Communists in opposition to Petain and fascism.
It should be noted that there are no reds running this new ‘resistance’. Instead it is a ‘resistance’ mostly directed
at the Republicans, not the whole system. Sanders’ group ‘Our Revolution” is
also committed to the Democratic Party at this point. No matter how many times they excoriate the
Democratic top donors, corporate base, neo-liberal politics and top officials,
they are also still ‘comrades.’ And this
makes a mockery of the term “revolution” too.
A real political revolution in the U.S. would involve the replacement
of the capitalist parties in power, not by working within one capitalist
party to promote it. A social revolution would involve
the overthrow of the private property system in favor of a collectively owned
and controlled economy, not by pushing illusions that capital will become
‘nice.’
Neither is
the goal of “Our Revolution” at present.
As you can see, both of these terms have been
co-opted.
The more
proletarian elements in the People’s Congress – and I do not include the listed
hot-shot super-stars – could be moving in the direction of political
independence, as shown by the support for the People’s Party. UE has always been for a Labor Party, and
now NNU is moving in that direction. The left should keep a good eye on what is
going on in this grouping, as part of a real Resistance could emerge from it.
 |
| Unity Around Jentzen |
Locally,
leftists and unionists finally got together to support a socialist
and anti-capitalist program – without the Democratic Party. A large fundraiser was held for Ginger
Jentzen at Mayday Books on Thursday, June 16.
She is running for the 3rd Ward council seat in Minneapolis,
MN, USA as a socialist, as a prime mover of “$15 Now” in the city and as
an advocate for rent control and fighting the capitalists who run
Minneapolis. May Day Books, Socialist
Action (SA), the local Democratic Socialists of America (DSA-M), International
Socialist Organization (ISO) and Socialist Alternative (SA) have all endorsed
her. More importantly, Minnesota Nurses
United (MNU), the Communication Workers of America (CWA) and the United
Transportation Union (UTU) have all endorsed Jentzen too. What Minneapolis
needs is a socialist in the city council once again. If she wins, politics in Minneapolis will radically change in favor of
working-class people.
Red Frog
June 18,
2017
No comments:
Post a Comment