United States: Should the left back Bernie Sanders' campaign? [Three] views

United States: Should the left back Bernie Sanders' campaign? [Three] views.

1. Dan La Botz: Sanders' campaign a political phenomenon that challenges preconceptions

Of all the far left groups, the International Socialist Organization had been the most critical of and hostile to the Sanders campaign—and for all the right reasons: his caucusing with Democrats, his foreign policy, and above all the belief that Sanders will be an obstacle to building an independent left movement and political alternative. The issue is whether these principled objections should keep us from working closely with Sanders’ supporters, while at the same time maintaining our own political independence.

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What the Sanders campaign may accomplish is to popularize a program of social democratic reforms, to deepen the discussion about socialism, to bring together labor, black, female, and LGBTQ activists into a movement with enough cohesion, energy, dynamism, and excitement to continue to build something after the election. The Sanders campaign could contribute to the launching of a new period of social movements and upheavals with a higher level of political consciousness and if it does that, it will be a great contribution.

So, while remaining a registered Green and planning to work for Jill Stein in the election, I plan to work with the Sanders campaign in the primary period, hoping—like other Sanders supporters—that out of this experience we can build a new, stronger, left in America.

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2. ISO (USA): The problem with Bernie Sanders

At the same time, the left shouldn't abandon the electoral arena to the two capitalist parties. If we do, we create a vacuum that the Democrats will fill, co-opting movement activists, demobilizing unions and social movements, and redirecting their precious time, money and energy into electing candidates who then betray workers and the oppressed.

We need to win the new left born out of Occupy, public-sector union struggles and the Black Lives Matter movement to breaking with the Democratic Party and building an electoral alternative as a complement to struggle from below. Bernie Sanders' campaign inside the Democratic Party is an obstacle to that project.

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3. US Solidarity: Connecting Sanders' Audience’s Aspirations to Clear Working Class Political Alternatives

Jesse Jackson, despite winning 8 million votes in 1988, chose to demobilize the ostensibly independent Rainbow Coalition organization after losing the Democratic nomination so no ongoing coalition went on to continue working around issues of economic and racial justice after the campaign ended. This time, the left should urge Sanders supporters to keep the fight going through joining anti-austerity struggles, social movements or building local, multi-racial coalitions, including independent electoral infrastructures, that live on well after the presidential campaign.

We agree with Howie Hawkins when he says: “We should talk about why independent politics is the best way to build progressive power, about the Democratic Party as the historic graveyard of progressive movements, and about the need in 2016 for a progressive alternative when Sanders folds and endorses Clinton. I don’t expect many will be persuaded to quit the Sanders campaign before the primaries. But I do expect that many of them will want a Plan B, a progressive alternative to Clinton, after the primaries.”

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Sanders is getting people involved in politics. However, the problem is how to keep activism going after elections. Then, how to get people to raise their consciousness further into radical politics?

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Ted Rall: L.A. Confidential: How The LAPD Conspired To Get Me Fired From The Los Angeles Times — And How I Proved They Lied

Ted Rall writes L.A. Confidential: How The LAPD Conspired To Get Me Fired From The Los Angeles Times — And How I Proved They Lied.

Classic Streisand effect: In their attempt to discredit me and destroy my reputation as a journalist, the LAPD wound up discrediting themselves and further eroding its own reputation. And they’re taking the Times with them.

But the LAPD’s reputation has, of course, already been destroyed by decades of police brutality, systematic corruption and fatal police shootings of one unarmed black man after another.

Will the Times do the right thing: apologize, issue a retraction, and return my cartoons and blogs to the pages of the newspaper? I hope so.

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We need Rall's incisive journalism as well as his intregity.

The police and mass media are colluding to silence that voice as the support for Capitalism is rotting away under the daily exposure of corruption in the system.

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Israeli squatter-terrorists kill Palestinian toddler, injure 4 after setting their Home Ablaze

Juan Cole re-posts that Israeli squatter-terrorists kill Palestinian toddler, injure 4 after setting their Home Ablaze.

Israeli settlers killed a Palestinian toddler and injured four others early Friday morning after settling their home ablaze in the village of Doma near Nablus in the occupied West Bank, local sources said.

Ali Saad Dawabsha, one-and-a-half years old, died shortly after sustaining serious burns, said Ghassan Daghlas, an official who monitors settlement activity in the northern West Bank.

His mother and father, Riham and Saad, and their son Ahmad, 4, also sustained injuries and were evacuated to a nearby hospital, Daghlas said, adding that their home was left completely burned.

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ISIS burn a Jordanian pilot alive and are justly condemned throughout the world.

Israelis burn a Palestinian child alive and there is silence.

As John Pilger says, Palestinians are unworthy victims. Indeed, they are even blamed for all the violence done to them.

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Did Turkish Pres. Erdogan Make a Historic mistake in dumping Peace Process with Kurds?

JULIE POUCHER HARBIN asks Did Turkish Pres. Erdogan Make a Historic mistake in dumping Peace Process with Kurds?.

Turkey has become increasingly concerned that gains made by Kurds in Iraq and in Syria could encourage its own Kurdish minority to seek independence. Kurdish rebels released a statement on July 25, 2015 following the airstrikes that the conditions for observing the truce had been “eliminated”. The PKK’s military wing, the HPG, denounced this “aggression of war” by Turkey and vowed “resistance”. It described the bombings in northern Iraq as the “most serious military and political error” by Erdogan and his ruling Justice and Development Party.

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What is missed in this analysis is that the Kurds are exploring an alternative political and economic system to Capitalism. This makes them more dangerous than ISIS.

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SYRIZA's dilemma

Sam Gindin and Leo Panitch discuss SYRIZA's dilemma.

The central problem is that even the most detailed plans now being advanced are presented as a set of alternative policies, but in fact amount to demands for an immediate political revolution. They fail to confront whether this is possible given the balance of forces inside Greece, as reflected in mostly unreconstructed institutions of the state itself, as well as by the continuing public preference for staying with the euro. Concrete political analysis, rather than a technical response to a political problem, is what is needed in the present moment.

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A politcal revolution is extremely unlikely, at this time, in Greece, or, indeed, elsewhere in the West. The troika knew this when they punished the Greek government for having the utter gall to even think of opposing austerity.

Workers have to understand what is happening in Greece will soon be happening in Portugal, Italy, Spain, and elsewhere.

A true political revolution is our salvation, not a negotiating ploy.

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On centrist utopianism

Chris Dillow writes On centrist utopianism.

I say all this as a counterweight to a longstanding prejudice — that centrists and moderates are realistic and hard-headed whilst we leftists are utopian dreamers. Of course, this accusation applies to some on the left — anything is true of someone — but for me the opposite is the case. I'm a Marxist because I'm a pessimist. It is those who think that (actually-existing) capitalism is easily reformable so that inefficiencies and injustices can be eliminated who seem to me to be the dreamers.

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Capitalism is all about increasing inequality, speculative bubbles, and recurring crises of over-production. One cannot reform the essential nature of a thing—one can only mollify its effects.

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Socialism, American-Style

Mark Thoma comments on Socialism, American-Style, by Gar Alperovitz and Thomas M. Hanna, Commentary, NY Times.

Moreover, contrary to conventional opinion, studies of the comparative efficiency of modern public enterprise show rough equivalency to private firms in many cases. …

With skepticism about capitalism growing among minorities and young voters, will we see more such endeavors in the future? Pendulums have a way of swinging, sometimes very sharply, when big economic tsunamis hit. It is possible that in the next big crisis, both sides might see the wisdom and practical benefits of public ownership, and embrace Joseph Schumpeter’s point even more boldly than they do today.

I think this would benefit from separating natural monopolies — where it is not surprising in the least that costs/prices are lower with public ownership (or strict regulation of prices if privately owned) — from the other examples. When *significant* market failures justify it, I fully support public ownership. But in most cases I'd prefer private sector ownership with regulatory oversight.

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The propaganda machine of Capitalism would never publicly admit the inherent deficiencies of markets. However, failures are sometimes too great to cover over as in the case of the GFC.

Public ownership and regulatory oversight are tacit admissions that economic forces should be subject to the popular will not to private whims. Yet, these are still far from the actuality of worker-controlled and directed enterprises under Communism.

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How Wealthy Is Everyone Who Isn't Rich?

Barry Ritholtz ponders How Wealthy Is Everyone Who Isn't Rich?.

Consider the 71 percent of the world's population that falls into the poor and low-income categories. TThis group devotes a very large share of its income to food, medicine, clothing, housing, education and energy. It therefore represents a huge market for basic goods and consumer staples.

Think of it another way. More than fourth-fifths of world's population live on less than $20 a day. TIn other words, how well this vast swath of humanity is doing will have important implications for industry, from health care and finance to agriculture and energy.

Income growth in these groups in both the developing and developed world will alter the economic and political landscape. The U.S. National Intelligence Council has called it a global megatrend.

Not to be too optimistic, but the economic state of world is getting better. As more people move into the global middle class, they are able to buy more consumer goods, save and invest. That creates a long-term self-interest in political stability and, one can hope, democratic institutions.

How well we adapt to these changes will determine how successful we in the U.S. are as investors, and as a nation.

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Of course, the implied argument of this article is that Capitalism is making the world a better place.

The efforts of governments in China, Laos, Venezuela, Vietnam, Ecuador, Cuba, and elsewhere in devoting large resources to food security, housing, literacy, medical programs to the poor is undoubtably a major part in this trend towards a better world.

Yet, we have seen in recent years the callous disregard of Capitalism towards the poor through austerity programs in Europe (especially in Greece), the destruction of nations with successful social programs such as Iraq and Libya, and the brutal supression of refugees fleeing the terror of war and poverty.

Ritholtz is naieve to believe the rising middle class is blind to what Capitalism really means. The US's role in enforcing the brutality of Capitalism will not be easily forgotten.

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The Eurasian Big Bang

Tom Engelhardt posts Pepe Escobar's report on The Eurasian Big Bang in which China and Russia Are Running Rings Around Washington.

In the end, whatever Washington may do, it will certainly reflect a fear of the increasing strategic depth Russia and China are developing economically, a reality now becoming visible across Eurasia. At Ufa, Putin told Xi on the record: "Combining efforts, no doubt we [Russia and China] will overcome all the problems before us."

Read “efforts” as new Silk Roads, that Eurasian Economic Union, the growing BRICS block, the expanding Shanghai Cooperation Organization, those China-based banks, and all the rest of what adds up to the beginning of a new integration of significant parts of the Eurasian land mass. As for Washington, fly like an eagle? Try instead: scream like a banshee.

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Strangely enough, America's victory in the Cold War has allowed all of this to happen—the dismantling of Socialism in a Single State in the former USSR; and the rise of Deng in the PRC. Instead of mutual hostility through ideological conflict over Marxist-Leninism and Maosim, there is a mutual recognization of a common enemy in the USA and its naval hegemony.

It is this naval hegemony that forced Russia, China, India, and Iran to realize that it can be made irrelevant through development of land transportation routes through the Eurasian land-mass.

Since US-dominated institutions are reluctant to fund such infrastructure development, Russia and China have led the development of alternative financial institutions thereby lessening somewhat the political and financial leveraeg of the USA.

For Australia, this means we will probably keep putting the choice between following China or USA for as long as possible. For the USA, we remain a positive strategic asset in South-East Asia. For China, our value would only exist in the negative sense.

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What Is Wrong with the West’s Economies?

Mark Thoma is skeptical that … the answer to our inequality/job satisfaction problems lies in the prescription given in What Is Wrong with the West’s Economies?.

Of the concrete steps that would help to widen flourishing, a reform of education stands out. The problem here is not a perceived mismatch between skills taught and skills in demand. … The problem is that young people are not taught to see the economy as a place where participants may imagine new things, where entrepreneurs may want to build them and investors may venture to back some of them. It is essential to educate young people to this image of the economy.

It will also be essential that high schools and colleges expose students to the human values expressed in the masterpieces of Western literature, so that young people will want to seek economies offering imaginative and creative careers. Education systems must put students in touch with the humanities in order to fuel the human desire to conceive the new and perchance to achieve innovations. This reorientation of general education will have to be supported by a similar reorientation of economic education.

We will all have to turn from the classical fixation on wealth accumulation and efficiency to a modern economics that places imagination and creativity at the center of economic life.

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What heresy from a Capitalist economist! Wealth accumulation is not the point of Capitalism!

I suppose this is a tacit admission that Capitalism is not living up to its ideal as a panacea for all social ills. The system is not delivering benefits to the poor because people are using it the wrong way!

This is the major blind-spot of all Capitalist economists—this is how Capitalism works. It is all about wealth accumulation. Wealth accumulates to the most efficient, the most ruthless, the most politically connected.

Wealth means accumulation of even more wealth. The less efficient, the less ruthless, the less politically connected are impoverished in the process and eventually discarded from the system altogether.

Changing how people see the world means changing the social, economic, and political systems that form those views. You cannot change one without changing the others.

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Obama Administration Throws Workers an Overtime Crumb — We Want the Whole Cake

Stephanie McMillan writes that Obama Administration Throws Workers an Overtime Crumb — We Want the Whole Cake.

Why even settle for a crumb? What about all the wages they stole through unpaid overtime up to now? They should RETURN ALL OF IT. How much: a year’s worth? Five years? Fifty? The amount will be determined by our collective strength, because they’ll never voluntarily return even a penny.

We gain nothing unless we fight for it. If we’re going to be strong enough to win our rights, then we need to organize. If establishment unions hold us back or sell us out—which happens all too often—then we need to organize on our own, into a new labor movement that workers control. The capitalists returned a crumb of what they owe us. Let’s band together and prevent them from taking it away again. Then we can start thinking about the rest of the cake.

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Knife at its throat, Greece yields to Troika brutality

Dick Nichols writes that with Knife at its throat, Greece yields to Troika brutality.

In this situation it is important to keep present that the basic reason for the signing of the Eurosummit deal was the SYRIZA-led government’s isolation. The energies of the left outside Greece are therefore best devoted to doing everything we can to strengthen understanding of Greece’s predicament and solidarity with its struggles, and to exposing the complicity of conservative and social-democratic governments in the European establishment’s ongoing war on the Greek threat to “There Is No Alternative”.

Greece has lost a battle—most probably unavoidably—but its courageous struggle against capitalist austerity continues. It must not be left to fight alone.

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Without a revolutionary movement, the Greece people were destined to be crushed. There are very few options under Capitalism for survival. Greece was given none.

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Conservatism with a Heart? It’s Called Socialism

Ted Rall writes that Conservatism with a Heart? It’s Called Socialism.

Boiled down to its essentials, the argument of would-be conservative reformers like Brooks is that it sure would be swell if capitalism could be made fairer. But the thing about capitalism is that unfairness isn’t an unfortunate side effect of this particular economic system. It’s a core feature.

Capitalism without unfairness and built-in inequality isn’t capitalism; it’s socialism. You don’t have to be Karl Marx to have been able to personally observe the tendency of power and money to aggregate into fewer and fewer hands over time, what we call monopolization, and to leverage those advantages in order to gather an even greater share.

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Redistribution of income. And wealth. That’s the ticket to solving income inequality. When the time comes, however, I’m going to trust my local Communists — who have been pushing for and thinking about it forever — a hell of a lot more than the reform conservatives who think Ronald Reagan, who trashed the social safety net, was some kind of hero.

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Not strictly true. The difference between Capitalism and Socialism is about who owns and controls the means of production: Capitalists or workers. In this advanced stage of Capitalism, the struggle is between the bankers and the workers.

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Greece Bailout: Selling Out to Scummy International Bankers

Ted Rall writes about Greece Bailout: Selling Out to Scummy International Bankers.

What is the point, from the standpoint of Greek voters, of electoral democracy, if elected “representatives” are elected with clear messages, reinforced by clear mandates delivered via referenda, who then ignore those popular directives when they feel squeezed by the so-called “great powers” in distant, fancy conference rooms?

If a national desire as clear-cut as that delivered by the Greek public — No. More. Austerity! — can be shrugged off just like that, it becomes clear that there is only one route left to effect real change: violence, revolution, violent revolution (which are one and the same).

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Revolution without a revolutionary party to guide it is likely to fail.

SYRIZA is not a revolutionary party. It wants to work within the system as do the majority of the Greeks.

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Former US Democrat Presidential Candidate Calls for Internment Camps for "Disloyal Americans" Americans

Mike Shedlock writes that Former US Democrat Presidential Candidate Calls for Internment Camps for "Disloyal Americans" Americans.

Idiotic "thought police" attacks on the constitution come from the right and the left.

Wesley Clark, like countless Republican constitutional hypocrites has just thrown his hat into the ring for perpetual war.

Don't like it? Then you belong in an internment camp until you do.

Is Clark's position any different from what happened in Nazi Germany or Iraq? What about China, or for that matter ISIS?

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Are the elites so wrapped up in themselves that they cannot see it is their actions and attitudes that are radicalising people?

All we need is someone to say Let them eat cake.

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Greece is not just a tragedy, but a lie

John Pilger writes that Greece is not just a tragedy, but a lie.

An historic betrayal has consumed Greece. Having set aside the mandate of the Greek electorate, the Syriza government has willfully ignored last week's landslide "No" vote and secretly agreed a raft of repressive, impoverishing measures in return for a "bailout" that means sinister foreign control and a warning to the world.

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For a small country such as Greece, the euro is a colonial currency: a tether to a capitalist ideology so extreme that even the Pope pronounces it "intolerable" and "the dung of the devil". The euro is to Greece what the US dollar is to remote territories in the Pacific, whose poverty and servility is guaranteed by their dependency.

…

The leaders of Syriza are revolutionaries of a kind — but their revolution is the perverse, familiar appropriation of social democratic and parliamentary movements by liberals groomed to comply with neo-liberal drivel and a social engineering whose authentic face is that of Wolfgang Schauble, Germany's finance minister, an imperial thug. Like the Labour Party in Britain and its equivalents among former social democratic parties such as the Labor Party in Australia, still describing themselves as "liberal" or even "left", Syriza is the product of an affluent, highly privileged, educated middle class, "schooled in postmodernism", as Alex Lantier wrote.

For them, class is the unmentionable, let alone an enduring struggle, regardless of the reality of the lives of most human beings. Syriza's luminaries are well-groomed; they lead not the resistance that ordinary people crave, as the Greek electorate has so bravely demonstrated, but "better terms" of a venal status quo that corrals and punishes the poor. When merged with "identity politics" and its insidious distractions, the consequence is not resistance, but subservience. "Mainstream" political life in Britain exemplifies this.

This is not inevitable, a done deal, if we wake up from the long, postmodern coma and reject the myths and deceptions of those who claim to represent us, and fight.

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Betrayal — that is a harsh word.

We must smash the lie of There Is No Alternative. We must do this daily through experience, reflection, and action. Then repeat.

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Britain's Left Unity on the struggle of the Greek people

Kate Hudson writes for Britain's Left Unity on the struggle of the Greek people.

Since its election in January, the SYRIZA-led government has been caught in a contradiction: it was elected by the people to oppose austerity but to keep Greece in the Eurozone. That has been a consistent theme throughout, even during and after the referendum which saw over 61% voting No to the terms of the bailout. The government has tried through negotiation to fulfil that mandate but that has clearly not been possible. The EU states and institutions will not allow a radical left government to succeed. A successful challenge to neoliberalism by Greece would have opened the door wide to further challenges across Europe, including Spain, which has seen recent electoral victories for left coalitions. TThe EU states and institutions have recognised the challenge and are waging class war, not only against Greece and its people but against all the peoples of Europe.

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Let no revolutionary misunderstand: there is no path to Socialism outside of revolution. The Capitalists have consistently demonstrated that they will ruthlessly and relentlessly defend Capitalism against all-comers.

Socialism is not won through the ballot-box. A socialist government, such as SYRIZA, can get into office, but the institutions of Capitalism will prevent it from implementing its election promises.

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Brutality towards Greece

Let no one misunderstand: the brutality shown to Greece is meant to be a lesson to everyone. There is no alternative to following the dictates of the bankers.

As Sinn Fein condemns treatment of Greece as 'alarming', says EU framework shattered, Gerry Adams says that:

“Today could well be the day when all pretence of a Europe of equal states and people was lost and replaced by a Europe of the powerful and the wealthy.”

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Kenneth Thomas, in Impending disaster in Greece, writes that:

The Germans, it would appear, have decided to push Greece from the eurozone. But demanding an end to Greek sovereignty and austerity as far as the eye can see is simply evil. Moreover, it negates the long-successful stand of European Central Bank (ECB) president Mario Draghi that the ECB would do “whatever it takes” to keep the eurozone intact. The ECB’s reputation would be damaged greatly should crisis recur in Spain, Portugal, Ireland, etc., now that the world knows the ECB will not do “whatever it takes.” This is a recipe for a new recession in Europe spreading from the EU periphery.

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Kevin O'Rourke says that 'Negotiating with Germany is a Waste of Time':

…I don’t suppose that any other left wing party that may come to power in the future seeking to challenge the current European economic policy mix will be as feckless as Syriza. The lesson that they will draw from this debacle is: negotiating with Germany is a waste of time; be willing to act unilaterally, be willing to default unilaterally, have a plan for achieving primary surplus if you haven’t already achieved it, have a hard default and euro exit (now possible, thanks to the Germans) option in your back pocket, and be willing to use it at the first sign of hassle from the ECB. A deal could have been done today that would have strengthened the Eurozone, but instead it has just become a lot more fragile.

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Bill McBride comments on Greek Deal:

The beatings will continue until morale improves.

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Greece Over the Brink

Mark Thoma posts an excerpt from Greece Over the Brink, by Paul Krugman, Commentary, NY Times.

Don’t be taken in by claims that troika officials are just technocrats explaining to the ignorant Greeks what must be done. These supposed technocrats are in fact fantasists who have disregarded everything we know about macroeconomics, and have been wrong every step of the way. This isn’t about analysis, it’s about power — the power of the creditors to pull the plug on the Greek economy, which persists as long as euro exit is considered unthinkable.

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Greece is witnessing a power struggle between an elected government and the unelected bureaucrats of international financial institutions. This is a proxy struggle between workers and the financial capitalists.

The Capitalists know that defeat in Greece almost assuredly means defeat in Spain. They will pull out all stops to make the expected 'NO' vote on Sunday to be irrelevant. Democracy must not allowed to prevail over the Capitalists.

Workers will have to realise that victory in Athens, or even in Madrid is not the end of the story. It is not even the beginning of the end. Only by joining the struggle to raise ours and others political consciousness can we make this the end of the beginning.

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Rojava fights off new Islamic State attack

Tony Iltis writes that Rojava fights off new Islamic State attack.

The Kurdish town of Kobane in northern Syria was attacked on June 25 by forces from the self-styled Islamic State (IS) terrorist group, which crossed from Turkey. This was the first significant IS attack on the town since a five-month siege was repulsed in January.

The attack appears to be a Turkish-backed response to recent military gains made by the Kurdish-led forces of the Women's Defence Units (YPJ) and People's Defence Units (YPG).

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The Turkish government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan condemned the Kurdish-led forces as “terrorists”. Pro-government Turkish media has spread false allegations accusing the YPG of ethnic cleansing, which have been repeated by pro-Turkish Syrian opposition groups and some Western media.

Erdogan opposes the Administration of Democratic Autonomy-aligned forces because of their ideological ties to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has fought a liberation struggle in Turkish Kurdistan, and to the left-wing Peoples Democratic Party (HDP).

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Once again, the Capitalists want the world to know that “There is No Alternative”. They are prepared to use their enemy, IS, in attempt to destroy what they see as a far-greater threat: that of an alternative, functioning society based on grass-roots democracy and socialist ideals.

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