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Why I voted for Howie Hawkins
anthonyboynton@...
I voted for Howie Hawkins, I donated money to his campaign, and I promoted him to the extent that I could.
The fact that I vote in California where Biden will win - no matter what I do - did not figure into my decision, although it helped me persuade some others to vote for Hawkins.
My thinking is that the working class of the United States, as atomized as it is, as fractured as it is by race, gender and ethnicity, as enthralled as it is by its relative material well-being, and as blinded by the full menu of bourgeois ideologies available through the media, needs someone to keep alive the idea that an independent socialist political alternative is the one alternative that can resolve the crisis society is being swept into by a decadent capitalism.
This is the explosive idea of the working class taking power, even if it is presented only as a protest vote in an election in which the working class as an organized force is not participating.
Keeping this idea alive at the ballot box is more important than ever at this moment in history. A Biden presidency will be dedicated to maintaining the US military presence around the world, to protecting the police forces of the United States, to defending the interests of capital against workers, to maintaining the divisions of the working class, and to driving the planet into the inferno of global warming and planetary environmental crisis.
A Biden administration will sadly disappoint the tens of millions who are now voting for it for all of the reasons that John O'Brien, John Reimann and others on this list have argued.
Pragmatic reformism hopes that by gaining this or that concession, society will improve. And in an age when those concessions are being steadily eroded and reversed, pragmatic reformism becomes satisfied with mitigating this or that counter reform while others are accepted as the cost that must be paid.
This is the lesson of the Clinton and Obama administrations, and is the lesson of the whole history of reformism.
The problem with this line of argument today, is that time is short, we are going in reverse toward the edge of an abyss.
Having said this, I hope Trump loses and Biden wins. I think the conditions for the working class to become class conscious in the United States will improve with a Biden victory.
The best comparison in modern history is the election of 1964. In that year, the Socialist Workers Party ran Clifton DeBerry for president as a write-in candidate. The Communist Party USA supported LBJ, and the SDS sadly said "Half of the Way with LBJ". Many of its surviving leaders today say, "All the way with Joe", so does what's left of the CP.
By 1966 millions were chanting, "Hey, Hey LBJ, How many babies did you kill today?". The greatest revival of the left, and of revolutionary thinking
in the United States since the upsurge of the 1930's was derailed into the Democratic Party (thanks in large measure to the efforts of Stalinism and the Communist Party USA) occurred precisely in the eight years of the Kennedy-Johnson Democratic Party reign.
Today seems different, the cold war is over, the Soviet Union is gone, there is no war like the war in Vietnam, but the crisis of capitalism has not diminished, it has intensified. The SWP with its pitiable resources, did the right thing in 1964. Howie Hawkins' campaign is doing the right thing today.
Whatever happens next week, we should be prepared for the action to move back to the streets where we will find that Biden, Harris, and the Democratic Party will be there to defend the police along with whatever is left of the GOP.
Anthony
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Re: Why I voted for the lesser evil Joe Biden this time
Michael Meeropol
HERE'S A TEST -- how many people on this list know what the DUBOIS CLUB(s) were and when and where? (and this is not a trick question --- it's diagnostic of the "age" and "memory" of people on this list!) [Mike Meeropol --- age 77!]
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How Can Socialists Help Stop Trump? | Portside
Louis Proyect
Eric Blanc interviews Leo Panitch, who says that we need a Popular Front to support Biden's election. Quelle surprise.
https://portside.org/2020-10-31/how-can-socialists-help-stop-trump
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Bidenomics: boom or bust? – Michael Roberts Blog
Louis Proyect
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Re: Trump’s record on Syria: Enabler of Assad’s victory, enemy of Syrians
Louis Proyect
On 11/1/20 6:14 AM, Vladimiro Giacche'
wrote:
No doubt that Biden will be more supportive than Trump for jihadists, as Obama and Hillary were. So speaks our resident fan of sarin gas,
starvation sieges, barrel bombing of tenement buildings, and a
mafia state whose cronies hid their money in banks tied to
Mosseck-Fonseca.
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Re: Why I voted for the lesser evil Joe Biden this time
Louis Proyect
On 11/1/20 12:33 AM, John Obrien wrote:
Go ahead and hope. In the meantime, you sound
like a member of the Dubois Club.
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Re: Trump’s record on Syria: Enabler of Assad’s victory, enemy of Syrians
mkaradjis .
An ignorant comment is only worthy of a flippant reply: "One would certainly hope so".
On Sun, Nov 1, 2020 at 10:14 PM Vladimiro Giacche' <vladimiro.giacche@...> wrote:
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Why the Record Vote Turnout May Not Matter
Dayne Goodwin
Why the Record Vote Turnout May Not Matter
by Jack Rasmus, October 28, 2020 https://jackrasmus.com/2020/10/28/why-the-record-vote-turnout-may-not-matter/ Mainstream media is pounding out an incessant drumbeat: ‘Get Out and Vote! Mail in Your Ballot! Do It Now! Vote Early!’ But what may well determine the outcome of the election on November 3 may not be the current record voter turnout now underway. That is, not how many actually vote. But rather how many votes get actually counted. While Democrats are pushing voter turnout, Trump and Republicans are planning to prevent the counting of the votes that do turnout—at least in the three, or at most four, key swing states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin that will in the end determine the results of the 2020 election in the Electoral College. If the Electoral College were to cast its votes today Trump and Biden would be virtually tied! Contrary to the mainstream media and the popular vote trend, Biden does not have a comfortable lead in Electoral College votes. By this writer’s estimate, Trump has 248 Electoral College votes, while Biden has 244! Barely 40-50 potential Electoral College are therefore actually ‘in play’ as they say. These 40-50 are in the true swing states: Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin that together account for a total of 46 votes. The three are also the states in which Trump’s legion of hundreds of lawyers have been preparing for weeks to demand from pro-Trump recently appointed judges that they halt the counting of mail in ballots. That 248 to 244 close tie in the Electoral College today all but ensures that Trump moves forward on November 3 to implement his plans to stop the mail in ballot vote count in the key swing states. Further encouraging that plan is the fact that those same three swing states don’t start counting mail in ballots until midnight on November 3. Trump could potentially stop the count of virtually all the mail in ballots in those key swing states. . . . Amazingly CNN has Biden leading with 290 solid or strongly leaning ‘blue’ states. To get to 290 CNN assumes that Biden will eventually win the light blue ‘leaning’ states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, Minnesota, and even New Hampshire. Apart from these ‘leaning blue’, Biden has 204 other electoral college votes solid blue and thus wrapped up for Biden. The eight states ‘light blue’ and leaning Biden total 86 electoral votes which, when added to the solid 204, result in CNN’s assumed 290 for Biden. So it looks like Biden’s a strong lead in the Electoral College, per CNN analysis. Of course, CNN also assumes all votes for Biden will be actually counted, including mail in ballots. . . . Doing the Electoral College math still further, Trump only needs to stop the mail ballot count in two of the three states of Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania in order to deprive Biden of 270. And should no halt to mail ballot counting occur in any of the three, Biden still needs to win two of the three fairly nevertheless. In other words, halting the vote count in just two states is all it will take to give Trump another four years. If you think Trump, McConnell & friends haven’t done this calculation, you’re mistaken! CNN’s analysis of Trump’s solid and ‘leaning’ red states is no less naïve than its analysis of Biden’s. It has Trump with only 163 solid red state electoral votes, with Texas’s 38 votes indicated as only ‘leaning red’ toward Trump. So Trump only has 201 electoral college votes. CNN then describes Florida (29), Georgia (16), Ohio (18), and North Carolina (15) as neutral ‘battleground’ states that are up for grabs. Really? Who believes that? These 5 states are the notorious five (when including Texas) states that have a long history of voter suppression by various means. With no limits put on their vote suppression activities for years, including the last four in particular, these five states will almost certainly go for Trump again. Their legislatures are all solid rabid Republican! And if anything they’ve intensified their voter suppression activity since 2016. The notorious five are ‘battlegrounds’ only in CNN and the Democrat Party’s wildest dreams. Hundreds of thousands of eligible, potential Democrat voters have been purged from their voting rolls in recent years and months. Maybe millions. These five are where voters cannot register by mail, nor at the poll on voting day. Where mail in ballots must be received by election day, not merely post marked before. Where drop boxes for ballots are limited one to a county sometimes covering hundreds of square miles. Where witnesses must accompany a voter to get registered. Where a de facto poll tax must be paid in many cases. Where Trump supporters are allowed to ‘stand guard’ at polling sites with their guns if they want, in order to intimidate voters. Where votes in pro-Democrat precincts are often ‘lost’. Where voting machines supposedly break down when voters are kept waiting in line for six and more hours to vote. The list is long and disgusting. No. These five notorious voter suppressor states are not battlegrounds. They’re Trump’s. They are not ‘yellow code’ battleground states; they are Trump states kept in his camp by suppression and voter intimidation. Voter suppression in these five allowed Trump to win in 2016, just as much as Hillary’s terrible campaign permitted Trump to grab Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin by smaller margins. Eight states turned the election in 2016. The five voter suppressor states will repeat. And instead of Hillary giving away the three upper Midwest swing states, this time around Trump’s plan is to deny them to Biden by stopping the mail in ballot vote count there. When the notorious ‘vote suppressor big five’ states’ 116 electoral college votes are added to Trump’s solid 132 small red states’ votes, Trump has 248 potential votes—to Biden’s 244! That means the election in the Electoral College today is a virtual tie at 248 to 244! It’s not CNN’s 290 to 163! Both Biden’s and Trump’s campaign strategists know the election will be close, very close. The virtual tie with less than one week to go explains in large part why both Trump and Biden are paying attention to Maine and Nebraska, both making stops there despite their minimal 4 and 5 electoral votes, given that both states are the only ones allowing a split in their electoral college votes across candidates. Picking up one or more votes from either may play a role in this election before it’s over as well. Trump knows it. So does Biden. In summary, what the election appears coming down to is two things: First, will Trump prove successful in halting the mail in vote count in at least two of the three key states leaning blue: Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania? If so, he wins. Second, will the notorious five voter suppression states—Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Ohio, and Texas—pull off enough suppression in order to deliver their states’ electors to Trump yet again? If they don’t, Biden wins. In other words, it’s not getting more voter turnout that will determine the election. It is voter suppression plus vote count prevention that together will determine the fate of the USA for another four years! That’s what Democracy in America has come down to. . . .
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Re: Trump’s record on Syria: Enabler of Assad’s victory, enemy of Syrians
Vladimiro Giacche'
No doubt that Biden will be more supportive than Trump for jihadists, as Obama and Hillary were.
toggle quoted messageShow quoted text
Inviato da iPhone
Il giorno 1 nov 2020, alle ore 09:33, mkaradjis . <mkaradjis@...> ha scritto:
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Re: Listen to Revolutionary Parliamentarism with August Nimtz on Cosmonaut podcast
Dayne Goodwin
Thanks Andrew, a good discussion of Lenin's Marxism...with a bonus
passing comment at 48:30+ on Noam Chomsky's longtime stance of supporting the U.S. capitalist two-party political system while severely criticizing the capitalist government. On Sat, Oct 31, 2020 at 2:26 PM Andrew Stewart <hasc.warrior.stew@...> wrote:
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Trump’s record on Syria: Enabler of Assad’s victory, enemy of Syrians
mkaradjis .
Trump’s record on Syria: Enabler of Assad’s victory, enemy of Syrians 90 percent of Assad’s Reconquista under Trump’s watch With US elections approaching, Syrian people wanting to end the 50-year tyranny of the Assad dynasty are looking for any light from either candidate of the US ruling class. The fact that most conclude there is little to be excited about, and search for the tiniest seeming advantage from either side, highlights the plain fact that the US rulers have never had any interest in supporting the Syrian struggle for freedom. Now that Assad has largely won the so-called ‘civil war’ – mostly a one-sided slaughter he waged against the Syrian people – the only real debate going on is whether a victorious, yet highly unstable, Assad regime can be pushed into some kind of political compromise via a “constitutional commission” process. Compared to the heady days of one of the vastest and most inspiring popular revolutionary uprisings of the 21st century, having to ponder such questions is dull indeed. Nevertheless, reality being what it is, these questions can hardly be avoided. Assad’s victory is no ordinary case of a dictatorship successfully cracking down on its people, not wanting to underestimate the terror involved even in such “simple” cases. In Syria, we need to consider the whole Syrian people, not only those forced to live under the dictatorship’s heel in the regions it controls. Assad’s military victory: Counterrevolutionary stability or ongoing catastrophe?First, of Syria’s pre-war population of 23 million, there are 6.6 million refugees outside the country (of whom 3.6 million are in neighbouring Turkey), over a quarter of the population, plus an equal number internally displaced (IDPs) within Syria. Then there are over 5 million people living in the northwest (Idlib and northern Aleppo regions) still outside of Assad’s control, under what remains of various rebel groups, mostly under Turkish influence, and this includes over 1.7 million internally displaced from elsewhere in Syria. Then there are another 3 million people, including 700,000 internally displaced, in the northeast, under the control of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), backed by the US military, who entered Syria to help the SDF defeat ISIS. Therefore, some 14.5 million people – 63 percent of Syria’s pre-war population – are outside regime control. When we add some 140,000 people estimated to have been incarcerated in Assad’s torture prisons or disappeared, of whom tens of thousands have been killed, and an estimated 670,000 people killed in the war, along with the physical destruction of much of Syria’s infrastructure by years of relentless regime and Russian terror bombing, it becomes clear why Syrians are not ready or able to say “OK, the dictatorship won, we lost, that’s bad, but now there’s no choice but to get on with our lives under counterrevolutionary stability” – any kind of “stability” is impossible under such conditions. At the very least, those pushing this view – not only Assadists, but other well-meaning people who see the reality of defeat – need to take into account that if it is the interests of “the Syrian people” they are concerned about, then these “Syrian people” are not only the 8-9 million under regime control (even if we assume that these people are content with the situation, a likely erroneous assumption); but also the 6.6 million outside Syria, most of whom will not return with the regime in power, and the 8 million living in the northwest and northeast outside regime control. For those concerned with ameliorating this situation, does a Trump or a Biden in the White House make any difference? https://mkaradjis.com/2020/10/
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Re: Why I voted for the lesser evil Joe Biden this time
John Obrien
Louis,
Glad to have you re-emphasize it is a Marxist list and not a religious faith believer list.
I would hope that Marx would consider TODAY with changing conditions from the period he lived in -
the threat of a nuclear armed nation by a emotional troubled mind of Donald Trump.
And that there is neither a organized left or organized
working class in the U. S., while a fascist armed
growing movement, that has international connections. So are you suggesting that everyone must
wait until these two forces have organized?
And as I previously wrote and confirm others who have stated: it is the duty of a revolutionary to both
make a revolution and to be the most dedicated defender of the working class and oppressed.
The U.S. white privileged males in the late 19th and 20th Centuries was that "others"
(non-white hetero males) - should wait until after a workers government was established.
The same thing was stated by those in colonial nations, when anti-colonialists carried out
national liberation movements such as in Algeria.
Who decides who must wait? Those with privilege who are only comfortable when it
benefits them?
One should both welcome people in motion struggling against oppression and support
their causes and thus can more easily win them to understanding the connections and
working together to advance both the class that I am part of and to work for a more
cooperative world of peace, justice and respect.
While one of Marx's most known quotes after Workers of The World Unite - you have
nothing to lose but your chains - was "Religion is the opium of the people" But he then
offered no solutions to LGBT people dealing with their religious oppressors - and was in
fact a homophobe on that subject.
So you suggest that those who are not hetero white males - should accept and wait
until the U,S. Green Party becomes a force? And we do not try to improve our
situation - because that is reformism - and not revolutionary enough for you?
I think you do not believe that and that you just do not have a real answer and solution
NOW, to avert the growing religious right wing fascist threat. My and others voting
for Biden this week, seem to view that as our desperate act, since we fear those who
want to harm us, and your so far not united revolutionary worker force, is not there
to kick the fascists asses. These two thousand fascist grouplets in all 50 states, are
actively training their members how to physically fight. I see little by your Green
Party to provide needed self defense training, or the other left sectlets of small
numbered groups, that you post to bemoan those for daring to disappoint those
who demand to set the rules, on what people should and can do to try and defend
themselves.
I suggest that the non-white hetero males, can not just wait for the hopeful eventual
revolutionary forces and leadership that you prefer. Since our reality and conditions
are different than the privileged and comfortable, who do not have to deal with the
fascists and an unacceptable Trump administration. Workers can work for capitalists
you accept and at merchant of death manufacturers, but can not vote for Biden - to
defeat Trump and his fascist supporters? Sometimes ideology can get in conflict with
reality. I suggest one choose reality, with the smell of fascism, emanating from Trump.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From:
marxmail@groups.io <marxmail@groups.io> on behalf of Louis Proyect <lnp3@...>
Sent: Saturday, October 31, 2020 5:00 PM
Why I voted for the lesser evil Joe Biden this time On 10/31/20 7:25 PM, John Obrien wrote:
The operative term is Marxists. This is a Marxist mailing list, not a leftist mailing list. Until the Popular Front, Marxists never backed capitalist politicians. Every single Marxist leader understood this in the USSR. They would have opposed the Popular Front if they hadn't been either jailed, exiled or killed. We are paying for Stalinism today. It's legacy runs deep even if the CPUSA is not what it used to be. We are also paying for the new "democratic socialist" upsurge tied to the Sanders campaigns. Despite the frequent tributes paid to him by DSA'ers, they never would accept what Marx wrote in 1850: "Even where there is no prospect of achieving their election the workers must put up their own candidates to preserve their independence, to gauge their own strength and to bring their revolutionary position and party standpoint to public attention. They must not be led astray by the empty phrases of the democrats, who will maintain that the workers’ candidates will split the democratic party and offer the forces of reaction the chance of victory. All such talk means, in the final analysis, that the proletariat is to be swindled."
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Re: Moderator's note
Sābrīn M
Apologies
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Moderator's note
Louis Proyect
Reminder to those who have heard this
before, and a rule to new subscribers. Try to avoid reproducing
the entire post you are replying to, especially when you are just
posting a one-liner like the one below. This rule was instituted
in the early 90s when most people were still using phone modems
that had limited bandwidth. It also helped to cut down on posts
that carried along all the previous posts, which were superfluous.
Nobody has to worry about being unsubbed by forgetting to clip
extraneous text but please try to keep the rule in the back of
your mind when you post.
On 10/31/20 9:27 PM, Sābrīn M wrote:
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Re: Why I voted for the lesser evil Joe Biden this time
Sābrīn M
Voting for Biden is a no brainer. Leftists who refuse to do so have what Lenin called "infantile disorder."
On Sat, Oct 31, 2020 at 7:00 PM Louis Proyect <lnp3@...> wrote:
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Re: Why I voted for the lesser evil Joe Biden this time
Louis Proyect
On 10/31/20 7:25 PM, John Obrien wrote:
The operative term is Marxists. This is a Marxist mailing list, not a leftist mailing list. Until the Popular Front, Marxists never backed capitalist politicians. Every single Marxist leader understood this in the USSR. They would have opposed the Popular Front if they hadn't been either jailed, exiled or killed. We are paying for Stalinism today. It's legacy runs deep even if the CPUSA is not what it used to be. We are also paying for the new "democratic socialist" upsurge tied to the Sanders campaigns. Despite the frequent tributes paid to him by DSA'ers, they never would accept what Marx wrote in 1850: "Even where there is no prospect of achieving their election the workers must put up their own candidates to preserve their independence, to gauge their own strength and to bring their revolutionary position and party standpoint to public attention. They must not be led astray by the empty phrases of the democrats, who will maintain that the workers’ candidates will split the democratic party and offer the forces of reaction the chance of victory. All such talk means, in the final analysis, that the proletariat is to be swindled." https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/communist-league/1850-ad1.htm
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NY Times: Kentucky Police Training Quoted Hitler and Urged ‘Ruthless’ Violence
Alan Ginsberg
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/31/us/kentucky-state-police-hitler.html Kentucky Police Training Quoted Hitler and Urged ‘Ruthless’ Violence
 A slide show once shown to cadets training to join the Kentucky State Police includes quotations attributed to Adolf Hitler and Robert E. Lee, says troopers should be warriors who “always fight to the death” and encourages each trooper in training to be a “ruthless killer.” The slide show, which came to light on Friday in a report from a high school newspaper, brought harsh condemnation from politicians, Jewish groups and Kentucky residents, but not from the Kentucky State Police department itself, which said only that the training materials were old. Morgan Hall, a spokeswoman for the Kentucky Justice and Public Safety Cabinet, which oversees the State Police, said that the slide show was “removed” in 2013 and was no longer in use but declined to answer a list of questions, including queries about how long the material was used and how many cadets had seen the training.  Image
Ms. Hall said in a statement that it was “unacceptable” that such material had ever been included in law enforcement training. “Our administration does not condone the use of this material,” she said. She added that the cabinet agency “began an internal review” after learning about the material on Friday. The quotations attributed to Hitler, the genocidal leader of Nazi Germany, and Lee, the Confederate general, are included among 33 slides that were shown to cadets in the Kentucky State Police Academy as part of a slide show entitled “The Warrior Mindset.” “The very first essential for success is a perpetually constant and regular employment of violence,” reads one quotation attributed to Hitler, who is quoted more than anyone in the training document. Some of the statements attributed to Hitler link to a website providing biographical information about him and listing books by and about him. The training itself emphasizes that troopers must be ready to employ violence in order to do their jobs properly. One of the slides that quotes Hitler — under the heading “Violence of Action” — also says troopers should “be the loving father, spouse, and friend as well as the ruthless killer.” Another says warriors “always fight to the death, they never quit” and that they must be willing to “commit to the fight.”The title page indicates that the training was created by a retired captain, Curt Hall, who could not be reached for comment. Local news reports, Mr. Hall’s LinkedIn page and a news release from the State Police in 2018 indicate that Mr. Hall was an assistant commander at the police academy from 2005 to 2015 and later served as a commander in the internal affairs department and as the commander of one of the agency’s 16 regional posts. The lesson appears to be at least partially in line with “warrior training,” a controversial practice that often begins during basic training in academies and is modeled on military boot camp, which many police departments embrace. Many of the nation’s police academies and departments have long emphasized a warrior mentality, experts have said, with officers trained for conflict and equipped with the gear and weapons of modern warfare. Critics have said the specialized training can lead officers to believe they are under constant threat of being harmed and can intensify encounters with civilians. The slide show was obtained by a lawyer who is suing a Kentucky State Police trooper who shot and killed Bradley J. Grant, 37, in 2018. David Ward, the lawyer, said he had received a copy of the slide show after filing a public records request for documents that the trooper had seen when he was going through training at the academy in 2013. Mr. Ward said he was shocked by the material, and that it seemed to coincide with the combative nature of the trooper’s encounter with Mr. Grant that preceded the fatal shooting. The State Police said at the time that Mr. Grant had confronted two officers with a shotgun before he was killed, but Mr. Ward said Mr. Grant had been pointing the shotgun at his own chin and asking officers to shoot him. “This type of training — these quotes — creates a mind set that these troopers are at war, that they need to come to work ready for battle,” Mr. Ward said. “This type of mind set is likely to create an adversarial situation or a violent encounter, and I think that becomes even more likely when you encounter a person who is suffering a mental health crisis and is less likely to respond to verbal commands in a rational way.” The slide show was first reported by The Manual Redeye, a student newspaper at duPont Manual High School in Louisville, in an article written by the 16-year-old and 14-year-old sons of another lawyer involved in the lawsuit against the trooper.  Manual RedEye
@manualredeye
Manual Student journalists obtained a PowerPoint used in Kentucky State police training. These slides quote historical figures such as Hitler and Robert E. Lee and encourage police to be “ruthless killer[s].” Click here to learn more: https://manualredeye.com/90096/news/local/police-training-hitler-presentation/
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3K people are Tweeting about this
“This is absolutely unacceptable,” Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky, a Democrat, said in a statement. “It is further unacceptable that I just learned about this through social media. We will collect all the facts and take immediate corrective action.” The 33-slide presentation ends with a quotation usually attributed to Theodore Roosevelt about credit belonging to “the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood.” It ends: “Questions??” Giulia McDonnell Nieto del Rio contributed reporting. Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs reports on national news. He is from upstate New York and previously reported in Baltimore, Albany, and Isla Vista, Calif. @nickatnews
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Re: Why I voted for the lesser evil Joe Biden this time
John Obrien
If Marxists want to end capitalism, then they must be active in organizing and defending the working class,
that means not just hetero white males.
To state, it does not matter whether Trump or Biden is the next U. S. president, shows both a lack of
concern for those who are not privileged white males - but also does not understand the enemies
ground troops, represented by the right-wing religious fanatic believers.
Why is that in 2020? Perhaps the history one bases their views on, is too much like the AFL white male
craft unionism and not the rest of the actual working class
- when one says that it does not matter if Trump is
defeated.
First, does anyone on this list not understand that Trump and his supporters will engage in mass
roundups of poor undocumented people, as part of their effort to retain white supremacy?
These round ups will not include white Canadians, but of Black and Brown people and probably Asian
laborers, "to purify the country"?
Second, does anyone on this list not understand that Trump and his supporters will roll back
rights and standings of LGBT people?
Third, does anyone on this list not understand that Trump will deny health care access for
women and engage in having women leave the work force for "raising families", based on
the desires of the religious right wing. The prosecuting and jailing of doctors who provide
abortions and to stop sex education in schools.
Fourth, the government carrying out raids and arrests targeting leftists (yes those reading this).
And eventually as the Trumpsters move the politics rightward, they will then take on deporting
(or arresting) the others "unwanted" (add your name if a U. S. resident)
Many hetero male leftists have not been concerned about the religious right, because they
believe it does not directly harm them and be targets Just the queers and the feminists.
That is the "message" when one says it does not matter, if Trump wins or loses.
It matters to the rest of us!
I understand that Biden is a servant to Wall Street corporate greed and militarism - and
those who are still activists on this list, will hopefully be active in building opposition to
Bidens efforts to have wars because of markets and resources.
But to not recognize what Trump and many of his supporters represent - as a real
threat of a growing fascist movement. My whole life as a Gay man, I had to deal with
these right wing religious forces - often without any support or concern from hetero
leftists, more identified with hetero privilege - than rights and respect for those "different"
So perhaps when one states "it does not matter" - you might want to consider others
with less privilege.
From: marxmail@groups.io <marxmail@groups.io> on behalf of Mark Lause <markalause@...>
Sent: Saturday, October 31, 2020 2:22 PM Between the two, I personally would rather Trump lose because I'm just sick of him. I'm too old and have done nothing to deserve
having to hear or think about what delusion that moron is piping out to the country this hour.
Trump's first term was only as disastrous as it was because he really faced no serious Democratic opposition.
And a second Trump term will be disastrous only to the extent the Democrats continue to fail to do their jobs,
On the other hand, it's not clear that a Biden election won't actually lead to worse than Trump. Just to talk about the last two Democratic presidents . . .
Who is best going to protect that class is not really our concern. Our place is with the pitchforks . . . whatever state we live in.
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Re: Boycott Imperialist and Islamophobic France!
Sābrīn M
Why is condemning far-right terrorists and upholding free speech so hard for the modern left? So reductive.
On Mon, Oct 26, 2020 at 5:05 AM RKOB <aktiv@...> wrote:
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Re: Why I voted for the lesser evil Joe Biden this time
Mark Lause
Nobody who's followed me or my comments can honestly say that I do not detest Trump as much as anyone, which does not mean that they won't do it dishonestly. None of my absolute hostility to Trump makes Biden more acceptable or less responsible than any other Democrat of his generation for pushing the country in a direction that wound up saddling us with Trump . . . and, indeed, have consciously chose not to check a criminal administration or hold it responsible for anything. Between the two, I personally would rather Trump lose because I'm just sick of him. I'm too old and have done nothing to deserve having to hear or think about what delusion that moron is piping out to the country this hour. But let's cut through the manufactured bs on this . . . . Trump's first term was only as disastrous as it was because he really faced no serious Democratic opposition. There were a range of things they could have done to bloc the tax "reform," the nominations of the perjurers Kavenaugh and Coney Barrett, the caging of children, the refusal to honor subpoenas, etc., etc., etc. (Since the 1970s, Democratic strategy has been to let the Republicans be as awful as they want because it allows the Democrats to be worse and still be "the lesser evil.") And a second Trump term will be disastrous only to the extent the Democrats continue to fail to do their jobs, and maybe they'll have to in self-defense. Conversely, what we've learned from Trump's first term is that his fragile ego has made his administration a meat grinder for the careers of a generation of the worst kind of Republicans. Why would we think a second term won't be even worse for them? On the other hand, it's not clear that a Biden election won't actually lead to worse than Trump. Just to talk about the last two Democratic presidents . . . Voter disgust with Reagan and Bush elected Clinton who promised nothing but vagaries and his failure to deliver even those led to his loss of the Congress and the rise of Newt Gingrich, one of the most destructive and overtly piratical officeholders in modern American history. Anger with Dubya over both the WMD lies and the collapse of the economy paved the way for Obama who, after describing Clinton's administration as his model of a successful presidency, did just the same thing. "Hope and change" boiled down to a failure to hold his majority in Congress and the ascendency of a whole layer of shitbird Republicans who extended Gingrich's war on government into a holy war led by the dumbest leadership teams in U.S. history, capped by an essentially dysfunctional president. There's no reason to think Biden will even aim for anything different. And the ongoing problems of the pandemic will make it all the easier to raise a grand blowback to the continued failure to restore prosperity. Who will ride that tide? Rick Perry? Matt Gaetz? Jim Jordan? Louie Gohmert? Donald Trump Jr.? An antique pet rock? I'm not trying to be a fortune teller here, but just pointing out that what happens in the real world is going to be a lot more complicated than in the plot of a comic book. The quote Louis sent earlier from Obama to the financiers is worth repeating: "My administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks. You guys have an acute public relations problem that’s turning into a political problem. And I want to help. … I’m not here to go after you. I’m protecting you … I’m going to shield you from congressional and public anger." Who is best going to protect that class is not really our concern. Our place is with the pitchforks . . . whatever state we live in.
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