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Can the Electoral College deny Trump?

11/24/2016

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     An online petition is requesting Republican electors to switch their vote from Donald Trump to Hillary Clinton in the Electoral College vote of December 17.  As of this date, more than four and one-half million persons have signed it.  I am one of them.

      Members of the Electoral College are not bound by the Constitution to vote in accordance with the majority of voters in their particular states.  Twenty-six states have either pledges of faithfulness to the party standard bearer or laws mandating it.  However, the pledges are not legally binding; and although the laws can impose penalties, in most cases they are fines, and they do not nullify the vote. Thomas H. Neale, a specialist on the Electoral College for the Congressional Research Service, maintains that “most constitutional scholars believe that once electors have been chosen, they remain constitutionally free agents, able to vote for any candidate who meets the requirements for President and Vice President.”

      If Trump wins Michigan, thirty-seven of his 306 electors would have to abstain or cast their vote for another person in order to deny him the necessary majority in the Electoral College.  If thirty-eight of the Trump electors were to vote for Clinton, she would have the majority.  If neither obtains a majority, the presidency would be decided by the House of Representatives.

     Since 1796, there have been 156 “faithless” electors, as those who voted differently from the popular vote in their states are called.  In these cases, the votes were counted, and no sanctions was imposed. Here are some examples.  In 2000, a Democratic elector from the District of Columbia abstained from voting in protest of the District’s lack of Congressional representation.  In 1976, a Republican elector from the state of Washington, pledged to vote for Gerald Ford, voted for Ronald Reagan.  In 1972, a Nixon Republican elector from Virginia voted for the Libertarian presidential candidate.  In 1968, a Nixon Republican elector voted for George Wallace, candidate of the American Independence Party.  In 1956, a Democratic elector form Alabama voted for a former circuit judge in his hometown instead of Aldai Stevenson.  In 1948, a democratic elector from Tennessee voted for Strom Thurmond, the States Rights Party candidate, instead of Harry Truman.  In 1836, twenty-three electors from Virginia abstained, denying necessary Electoral College votes to their Democratic Party candidate for Vice-President, as a result of allegations that he had lived with an African-American woman.  In 1796, a Federalist elector from Pennsylvania voted for Democratic-Republican candidate Thomas Jefferson instead of the Federalist candidate John Adams.

     In the 2016 presidential elections, one of the reasons why a Republican elector might be persuaded to vote for Hillary Clinton is that she obtained at least one and one-half million more votes than Trump nationally.  Such a Republican elector might perceive that the national political will should be given greater priority than faithfulness to the electoral results in a particular state or loyalty to a political party.

     Peter Beinart, associate professor of journalism and political science at the City University of New York, maintains that “for the first time in modern American history, there’s a plausible case for urging the electors to vote their consciences.”  He has identified four reasons why Republican electors should abstain or vote for a candidate other than Trump. (1)  The danger that a Trump presidency would pose to the environment, inasmuch as Trump has repeatedly said that climate change is a hoax.  (2) The threat of nuclear war.  Trump in March and August made comments that suggest that he considers the use of nuclear arms to be a viable option for U.S. foreign policy.  (3)  The possibility that Trump might severely curtain freedoms of press, association and speech, particularly in the aftermath of a terrorist attack, and especially with respect to Islamic citizens of the United States.  (4)  Trump might attempt to ignore the constitutional limits of presidential authority, thus provoking a constitutional crisis.

      I am more inclined to argue in a different direction, maintaining the Trump is morally unqualified for the highest political office in the land. One Trump elector has publicly expressed his reservations about voting for Trump, precisely on moral grounds.  The elector maintains that his pledge to the Republican state party of Texas was made before Trump became the nominee, and that "as a Christian, I came to the conclusion that Mr. Trump is not biblically qualified for that office."

       Like the elector from Texas, I reflect on the question of whether or not Trump has the moral qualities to hold the office of president. But unlike our friend from Texas, I am guided not only by the words found in the Christian Bible, but also by the sacred texts formed by the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first century discourses of the charismatic leaders of the global popular movement for a just, democratic and sustainable world-system.  In accordance with a philosophical and ethical perspective so formed, I am deeply troubled by Mr. Trump’s scapegoating of ethnic and religious groups, blaming them as the source of problems that we confront, for the purpose of obtaining votes.  With a minimum of historical consciousness, we cannot fail to be aware of the sad and tragic consequences of this form of behavior in the history of Nazi Germany as well as the American South.  And as we reflect on the possibilities for the future, we certainly must conclude that there can be no tolerance for politicians who indulge in such behavior, for it is fundamentally incompatible with the processes necessary for creating a more just world.  Scapegoating is a morally unacceptable strategy. When it works, the electoral results are invalidated morally, and if the constitutional and legal means for the nullification of the election exist, those means ought to be utilized.

     These are exceptional times, defined by the multidimensional structural crisis of the world-system, and by the economic decline of the neocolonial hegemonic power, which, confused by its decline, turns more and more to military aggression.  The people do not understand these dynamics very well, but they understand enough to feel that things are out of control, and to know that the corporate elite, the financial speculators, and the ruling political class are not committed to taking steps that would benefit the average citizen.  Meanwhile, the Left has not been able to offer a viable alternative.  The Green Party has the right idea, in that it has formed an alternative political party, standing against the corporations.  But its platform is ahistorical, unphilosophical, superficial, and ethnocentric (see “The Green Party Platform” 8/26/2016).  It does not have the capacity to persuade the people of its legitimacy as an alternative force to the liberal and neofascist currents of thought that pervade the land in a confusing manner, currents which are tied to corporate interests.

      In this scenario of national decline and global economic, ecological, and political crisis; and in the absence of responsible and informed national leadership; the people are vulnerable to a skillful message that taps into their anxieties and fears.  In this situation, we would do well to recall the defense of the Electoral College by one of its architects, Alexander Hamilton (see Federalist Papers #68):
​     It was desirable that the sense of the people should operate in the choice of the person to whom so important a trust was to be confided.  This end will be answered by committing the right of making it, not to any pre-established body, but to men chosen by the people for the special purpose, and at the particular conjuncture.
     It was equally desirable that the immediate election should be made by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation, and to a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choice. A small number of persons, selected by their fellow citizens from the general mass, will be most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to so complicated an investigation.
He concluded:
​This process of election affords a moral certainty that the office of President will seldom fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications.  Talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity, may alone suffice to elevate a man to the first honors in a single State; but it will require other talents, and a different kind of merit, to establish him in the esteem and confidence of the whole Union, or of so considerable a portion of it as would be necessary to make him a successful candidate for the distinguished office of President of the United States.  It would not be too strong to say that there will be a constant probability of seeing the station filled by characters preeminent for ability and virtue.
​Hamilton expected that electors would deliberate, separately in each state, and would analyze and evaluate the moral qualities of the candidates, seeking to ensure that the elected person has the virtues that are required for a position of such high responsibility.  Hamilton intended that the electors would be free agents and deliberative representatives of the people, not lackeys of political parties.

       A denial of the presidency to Trump by the Electoral College would not be the definitive solution that we need in this time of national and global crisis.  It would provoke even more conflict than presently exists, with Trump supporters enraged.  And neither Hillary Clinton nor an alternative Republican selected by the Republican-controlled Congress would possess the necessary moral and intellectual qualities to lead the nation in these exceptional times of crisis.  It would, however, prevent a possible fall into fascism, and therefore, it is a step that we as a nation should take, if the necessary political will could be marshalled.

     What we really need is not available in the short term.  It is only possible in the long term, through the commitment and dedication of people who understand the true meaning of leadership.  What we need is a true party of the Left, capable of providing our people with a comprehensive and global analysis of the challenges that we confront, and capable as well of connecting to concrete concerns of the people, not by tapping into their anxieties and fears, but by believing in their intelligence, respecting their values, and calling upon their hopes.  The success of Sanders and Trump during the 2016 presidential elections, through which the people expressed their rejection of the political establishment of both parties, in spite of the superficiality of the one and the neo-fascism of the other, demonstrate the possibilities for a well-formulated national project proposal coming from the Left.  (For further reflections on an alternative party of the Left, see “A socialist revolution in the USA” 2/1/2016 and “Popular democratic socialist revolution” 1/15/2016).
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The dangers of Trump and Trumpism

9/5/2016

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     In the context of discussion of my post, “Hillary Clinton or the Greens?” 8/24/2016, on the Progressive and Critical Sociologist Network List, Andrew Kliman sent a link to an editorial, “The Extraordinary Dangers of Trump and Trumpism,” published on August 29 in With Sober Senses: A publication of Marxist-Humanist Initiative.

      The Marxist-Humanist Initiative takes the works of Marx as the foundation of its perspective.  It maintains that socialist revolutions have not been guided by Marx’s philosophy of revolution, and that so-called socialist societies in reality are forms of “state capitalism.” Based on the writings of philosopher, activist and feminist Raya Dunayevskaya (1910-1987), the Marxist-Humanist Initiative maintains that “past revolutions have changed forms of property and political rule, but have failed to go on to uproot capital, abolish alienated labor and hierarchical society, and establish a truly new, human socioeconomic system” (Statement of Principles of Marxist-Humanist Initiative).

     In contrast, my perspective is based in the writings and speeches of Third World revolutionary leaders that have synthesized Marxism-Leninism with the Third World perspective.  In my view, Marx correctly discerned that the most advanced understanding of social dynamics could be attained by taking the vantage point of a revolutionary class, and in Marx’s time, the Western European working class was at the vanguard of the revolution seeking to transform the expanding capitalist world-economy.  However, the subsequent development of the capitalist world-economy and the modern world-system put the Russian proletariat at the vanguard of the world revolution from the period 1905 to 1924.  Subsequently, with the failure of the Western European working-class revolution, evident to Lenin by the early 1920s, and with the fall of the Russian Revolution to a bureaucratic counterrevolution with Stalin at the head, the role of vanguard of the global revolution passed to the colonized of the world, as Lenin understood.  From 1917 to the present, anti-colonial movements of national and social liberation in Asia, Latin America and Africa have reformulated Marxism-Leninism, in theory and practice, from the vantage point of the colonized.  There emerged charismatic leaders, persons with exceptional understanding and leadership capacity, such as Mao, Ho, Fidel, Nkrumah, Nyerere, and Nasser; and Chávez, Evo Morales and Rafael Correa in the neoliberal stage.  Third World charismatic leaders have led the revolutionary political process, and they have played a central role in the formulation of an understanding of human history and the capitalist world-economy from below, continuing the project that Marx initiated.  Third World Marxism-Leninism sees current socialist nations not as undemocratic forms of state capitalism but as characterized by popular democracy, as against representative democracy; and as making necessary economic adjustments to the changing conditions of the capitalist world-economy, seeking to defend the sovereignty of the nation and to defend the social and economic rights of the people, while reformulating the meaning of political and civil rights.  

      In spite of our different perspective, I and the editors of With Sober Senses have arrived to similar conclusions with respect to Trump. First, we agree that there is a significant difference between Trump and Clinton, because Trump represents a serious threat to civil liberties and freedoms of speech, press and organization.  The editors maintain that “we are witnessing the beginnings of what could develop into a modern Americanized version of the Nazis’ Schutzstaffel (SS).” They assert that “to falsely equate Trump and Clinton is to ignore the grave threat to our civil liberties and lives that Trump represents. He and Clinton are not ‘basically the same.’”  They further argue:
​The upcoming election is fundamentally a referendum on civil liberties, freedom of the press, and separation of powers in the U.S. government. A Trump victory would be a decisive victory for those who regard these rights as expendable; and they will be expendable. The fact that the authoritarian strongman who rules over us came to power “democratically,” and the fact that a majority of voters effectively endorsed his plans, would be used to legitimize the abrogation of more than two centuries of bourgeois democratic rights.
      Secondly, we agree that common sense requires taking the threat seriously, which means that US citizens voting in key Electoral College states, in which neither Clinton nor Trump have a decisive advantage, ought to vote for Clinton.  It is not a question of supporting Clinton or the democratic party, believing that she or the party is capable of leading the nation toward participation in the development of a more just, democratic or sustainable world-system.  Rather, it is a question of a strategic decision to cast a vote, as With Sober Senses expresses it, not in support of the lesser evil, but to order to prevent a greater evil.  

     In the long term, constant and diligent efforts should be maintained to develop an alternative party of the Left, whether it be in accordance with the vision of the Marxist-Humanist Initiative, or the Third World Marxism-Leninism to which I am committed.  A strategic decision to vote for Clinton in the 2016 presidential elections in no sense precludes efforts on behalf of the development of an alternative political party of the Left.

       A factor in our common strategic recommendation to vote for Clinton (and not the Green Party) in key Electoral College states is that the Marxist-Humanist Initiative and I share a similar view with respect to the limitations of the Green Party.  It clearly is not a Marxist party, and this is a serious limitation, inasmuch as Marx’s work represents the breakthrough to a more advanced understanding forged from below.  I view the Green Party has a popular party that seeks to develop a political force independent of the control of the corporate class, and it should be appreciated by the people for this effort.  But it is lacking in philosophical and political understanding and historical consciousness, and therefore, at the present time it does not have the capacity to lead the people toward their emancipation from corporate domination.  However, it could overcome these limitations in the long term, if it were to recognize them and to take decisive steps to overcome them, seeking to further develop its theory and practice (see “The Green Party Platform” 8/26/2016; “Can the Green Party evolve?” 8/29/2016).


​Key words: Trump, Clinton, presidential elections, Marxist-Humanist Initiative
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Can the Green Party evolve?

8/29/2016

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       A recent poll found that 4% of voters support the Green Party of the United States.  This is a considerable achievement.  In recent decades, the third parties that were able to move beyond statistically insignificant levels of support in presidential elections were those that were formed by persons who were known previously to the public (Ralph Nader, Ross Perot, John Anderson), and their party structures dissipated following the elections.  The Greens have attained a level of popular support without benefit of a known personality, and they have developed permanent party structures that include candidates for various offices at different levels of government.  

     The emergence of the Greens is fully understandable in light of contemporary national and global dynamics.  The two principal parties in the United States have responded to the national economic and commercial decline and the structural crisis of the world-system by safeguarding the interests of the corporations and turning their backs on the people.  In contrast, the Green Party affirms the responsibility of government to protect the rights of the people.  The Green Party Platform upholds the social and economic rights of the people, advocating free tuition at public universities and vocational schools, universal health care, a minimum living wage for all, and measures to guarantee affordable housing.  Its platform includes affirmation of the fundamental moral principles of modern democratic revolutions, including respect for the sovereignty and self-determination of nations and for the right of workers to organize.  

     The Green Party Platform has good proposals for the creation of employment. It advocates public funding to create living-wage jobs in such areas as “environmental clean-up, recycling, sustainable agriculture and food production, sustainable forest management, repair and maintenance of public facilities, neighborhood-based public safety, aides in schools, libraries and childcare centers, and construction and renovation of energy-efficient housing.”  It calls for government subsidies for renewable energy companies, which among other benefits, would generate employment.

       Consistent with the widespread feeling among the people that the political process is not responsive to their needs, the Green Party Platform calls for reform of the electoral process, and it has several good proposals that would strengthen the capacity of officeholders to be independent of the demands and expectations of the corporate elite.  The proposed reforms include the enactment of proportional representation voting systems, full public funding for election campaigns, equal television and radio time for candidates, and the prohibition of corporate contributions to election campaigns.

      Although the political gains and moral commitment of the Green Party ought to be appreciated by the people, we must recognize that current objective and subjective conditions make possible a level of popular support for an alternative party of the Left much higher than four percent.  I believe that the inability of the Green Party to attain more support is a consequence of its limitations, which is revealed in the party platform, a document that is ahistorical, unphilosophical, and unreflective (see “The Green Party Platform” 8/26/2016).  In order for the Green Party to begin to play during the next thirty years the role that an alternative party of the Left can and must play, the party must incorporate into its leadership persons who are capable of leading the Green Party toward becoming a party that: is characterized by philosophical understanding, historical consciousness and political reflection; redefines what a political party is and does; takes seriously its mission of taking power; and is capable of forming alliances with various social movement organizations in all popular sectors.

     Philosophical understanding.  We all have perceptions of reality and opinions of what ought to be done.  But what is the foundation on which we can truly discern the true and the right?  This is the central philosophical question, and popular social movements (but not academic philosophy departments) have been teaching us the answer: we understand social reality from below.  Marx was the first to demonstrate this, by forging a comprehensive understanding of human history and the capitalist world-economy from the vantage point of the emerging Western European working class, thus moving Western European understanding beyond the conceptions of German philosophy and British political economy, which had been formulated from the vantage point of the bourgeoisie.  The Marxian breakthrough represented a threat to the established world order, inasmuch as it provided the epistemological foundation for the emancipation of the people.  Recognizing this, the dominant class has successfully marginalized the work of Marx.  Moreover, through donations and grants to universities, the dominant class has guided higher education toward a bureaucratization that has ensured that knowledge would not be formulated from below, and that it would be fragmented into specializations.  And so it was left to the charismatic leaders of the socialist revolutions of the world to further develop the insights of Marx, gradually creating a comprehensive understanding of human history and the capitalist world-economy, formulated from below, an understanding that has become a heritage of the popular social movements of the world.

      Inasmuch as the economic, political and cultural system in which we live is a world-system and a world-economy, in seeking to look at reality from below, we must take seriously the vantage point of those who form the dominated and superexploited sector of the entire world-system, and not merely the excluded in a particular nation.  Thus we must examine reality from the vantage point of the colonized.  We must seek to understand the insights of the charismatic leaders who have led the anti-colonial and anti-neocolonial movements formed by the peoples of the Third World during the last 200 years, which have sought to attain both national and social liberation.  In the discourses of leaders lifted up by the people and formed in heroic struggle, the insights from below can be found, enabling us all to discern the central dynamics of the world-system, thereby making possible united liberating political action by the people.

       Global historical consciousness.  What insights can be attained when we take seriously the discourses of the charismatic leaders of the Third World movements for national and social liberation?  Above all there emerges the understanding that the modern world-system and capitalist world-economy were built on a foundation of European conquest and colonial domination of vast regions of America, Africa and Asia; and that the Third World movements for the most part accomplished political independence but not true sovereignty and genuine independence, resulting in a neocolonial world-system in which the essential economic structures of the colonial era are preserved.  Thus, global structures continue to promote the development of the core nations as they promote the underdevelopment of the peripheral nations of the Third World.  

     In addition to enabling understanding of the foundation of the modern world-system, global historical consciousness, acquired through listening to the voices of the neocolonized, enables us to discern that the world-system is no longer sustainable.  Built on a foundation of conquest and expanding for four centuries through the conquest of new lands and peoples, the world-system has run out of lands and peoples to conquer, and thus it is no longer capable of its form of development, skewed to the advantage of the core nations.  It has entered a profound structural crisis, the signs of which have been evident since the 1970s.  This means, as the leaders and movements of the Third World understand, that the world-system must abandon the logic of domination in favor of a logic of cooperation, if is it to attain a new equilibrium.

      Fortified with global historical consciousness, an alternative political party of the Left would be able to delegitimate the ideology of the corporate elite and the strategy of the two political parties allied with it. It would be able to explain to our people that current US foreign policy cannot attain its objective of preserving US domination, because the world-system itself is no longer sustainable on a basis of domination. Aggressive economic and militaristic polices, although based on a certain logic, that of domination, have deepened the global crisis, have increased the decline of the United States, and have placed the earth and humanity at risk, as a consequence of the fact that they are inconsistent with current needs of the world-system.  An alternative direction is not only demanded by our fundamental values; it also is necessary.

     National historical consciousness.  Global historical consciousness helps us to understand our own nation in global context, and it would enable an alternative political party of the Left to debunk the dominant historical narrative of US ideology.  That narrative has many of our people believing that the United States has been a land of opportunity in which many ordinary people, many of them immigrants, experienced upward mobility through hard work.  But looking at US history in global context, we see that the economic ascent during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries of New England and the mid-Atlantic colonies was made possible by a lucrative trading relation with the Caribbean, in which middle class farmers of the English-American colonies sold food and animals to Caribbean slaveholders, who found it most profitable to use sugar income to purchase food and animals, rather than cultivate and raise them on their plantations.  It thus can be seen that the farmers of the English-American colonies, in addition to their work ethic, also possessed a blind eye with respect to the morality of slavery.  Their strategic economic and geographic location, combined with their capacity to be indifferent to the morality of their trading partners, enabled them to become middle class farmers who were accumulating capital.  A similar story would be repeated in the first half of the nineteenth century in a somewhat different form, as slaveholders in the US South sold cotton to northern US industry, inasmuch as the middle class farmers/merchants with accumulating capital were transferring capital into industry.  This North-South core-peripheral economic relation was central to the spectacular ascent of the United States during the nineteenth century.  In understanding the role of these regional economic relations in US commercial and industrial ascent, we see that the industrial expansion of the United States was rooted in slavery, or more precisely, the amoral capacity of upwardly ascending farmers and merchants to engage in lucrative trading relations with slaveholders.

     The rapidly expanding US industry needed factory labor, so the shores of the United States were made open to immigrants, mostly European peasants, during the nineteenth and the first quarter of the twentieth centuries.  These immigrants also experienced upward mobility, benefiting from an expanding national economy, built on slavery, and on an expanding world-economy, based on new European conquests in Africa and Asia.  The factory jobs that the new immigrants could attain, since they were in advanced and new industries in a core nation, were relatively good-paying, and the higher income enabled higher levels of education for the children of the factory workers. Persons of color, however, were excluded from this process of upward mobility, due to customs of racial segregation and job discrimination. Thus, the upward mobility of white immigrants in the United States was made possible not only by slavery but also by patterns of racial discrimination.

     By the time the United States decided to end racial discrimination in employment in 1964, the industrial expansion of the United States was coming to an end, and the world-system was entering a profound structural crisis.  The opportunity window was being closed just as the doors of racial barriers were being opened.  This dynamic made necessary a political will to pay the accumulated social debt to persons of color, in the form of programs of community development, employment, and education.  But the debt was not payed.  To the contrary, the people, both blacks and whites, were abandoned.

     An alternative political party armed with national historical consciousness could educate our people with respect to these basic dynamics.  In doing so, it would delegitimate the dominant ideological discourse. And it would discredit the leaders of the two political parties, who catered to the discourse and to the interests of the corporate elite, for their own gain.  It could call upon the people to cast aside the historically inaccurate narrative and to reject the political parties that have betrayed the nation and the people; and to support an alternative party that has attained, through its commitment to understanding and to justice for the people, a capacity to lead the nation in an alternative direction, in defense of the people.

     Political reflection.  What it is the meaning of democracy?  Elite control of the US political process and US educational institutions and news media has had the consequence that popular reflection on the meaning of democracy has been limited.  An alternative political party of the Left should endeavor to stimulate popular reflection on the concept of democracy, including an analysis of the class, racial and gender dynamics of the American Revolution, and the evolution of these dynamics since 1776.  It could put forth the proposition that democracy includes not only the protection of civil and political rights but also economic and social rights as well as the right of the self-determination and sovereignty of nations.  It could propose constitutional amendments that would guarantee the protection the social and economic rights of citizens, as has been done in new progressive constitutions in Latin America, and that would mandate that US foreign policy respect the sovereignty of other nations.  

      Redefining what a political party is and does.  Taking as an example the efforts of socialist movements and nations to develop popular councils, an alternative party of the Left could seek to form regular meetings among neighbors and co-workers for the purpose of public discussion and dialogue.  It could disseminate reading materials for discussion, taking as its example the publication and distribution of pamphlets during the American Revolution, such as Tom Paine’s Common Sense.  The meetings and reading materials would be the basis not only for the nomination and election of candidates to office at various levels of government, but also for political reflection and for the development of global and national historical consciousness among the people.  The party would be not only an electoral party, but also a social movement organization that educates and organizes the people.

     Taking seriously the mission of taking power.  We in the movements of the Left are so accustomed to our powerlessness and marginality, that often it is difficult for us to internalize the idea that an alternative political party seeks to take political power.  Sometimes we debate among ourselves tactics that seek to pressure those in power to adopt particular measures, losing sight of the fact that the more just and sustainable world that we seek can only be attained when a party of, by and for the people takes power and, once in power, struggles to implement policies that promote the will, interests and needs of the people.  In the Green Party Platform, some of the proposals were put forth in the form of demands to the government.  But we should be consistent and clear on this point.  An alternative political party should not put forth demands.  It should make promises to the people, which will be implemented when the people bring the party to power.

     In order to take power, an alternative political of the Left would have to attain the support of the majority of the people.  Often, the discourse of the Left lacks consideration of what kind of arguments it would take to convince the majority.  It indulges in self-expression, satisfied that it has expressed its views, rather than reflecting on the kind of discourse that would be necessary to attain a majority consensus.  An alternative party of the Left in the United States should be sensitive to the fact that many of our people have conservative values with respect to religiosity, marriage and sexuality.  These are private and personal matters, and governments and social movements should respect such views and should interfere with them only when they violate rights, and in these cases, with sensitivity.  With respect to reproductive rights, for example, the discourse of the Left should affirm the right of abortion in a form that is sensitive to those who believe that abortion is morally wrong.  It should explain that society has no option but to uphold the right of each woman to make a difficult decision without state interference, even as it affirms the right of persons and organization to be opposed to and to teach against abortion.  It could propose full public support for all available options, without intending to promote either abortion or adoption, and it could commit itself to the development of a kind of society that provides support to all parents in the difficult and important task of child-rearing.  Similarly, with respect to gay rights, the party should affirm the rights of all to select partners, without suffering discrimination or exclusion; but the party should be careful to avoid the appearance of celebrating a lifestyle that some define as sinful, or of denigrating those with more conservative views. In all issues that have the potential to divide our people, an alternative party of the Left should seek to defend what is right in a form that is sensitive to the values of our people, recognizing that, if it is going to take power, it cannot afford to alienate the people. Progressive social goals, standing in opposition to the interests of the corporations, cannot possibly be attained if the people are divided, and the discourse of progressive movements must be formulated with sensitivity in relation to issues that divide our people.

     Popular coalition.  The people of the United States are characterized by ethnic, class, occupational, religious and gender diversity.  All of our people in their diversity have formed organizations that seek to protect and defend their basic rights.  An alternative party of the Left must actively seek coalition with the various organizations that our people have formed, always being careful in its discourse to adopt language that is fully inclusive, and does not offend any the sectors of our people.  The discourse of an alternative party of the Left should be offensive only to the corporations and to the one percent who want to preserve special privileges.  

     An alternative political party of the Left that redefines what a political party is, that leads a coalition of popular organizations, and that educates the people toward an alternative national and global historical narrative is attainable.  The current economic decline of the nation and the structural crisis of the world-system establish conditions favorable to fascism, but they also strengthen the possibilities for an alternative party of the Left that is rooted in philosophical, historical and scientific understanding as well as the fundamental values of modern democratic revolutions, and that, as a result of the exemplary commitment of its leaders, is able to earn the trust and confidence of the people.

     The Green Party could evolve to be such a party.  But in order to do so, it has to recognize its current limitations.  It has to turn for help to those who could assist it to move to a more advanced stage, for the good of the people and the nation.

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The Green Party Platform

8/26/2016

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     The Green Party Platform reflects limited understanding of the historical development of global structures of domination.  This limitation is a consequence of a subtle form of Eurocentrism, in which we intellectuals and activists of the developed world do not seek to learn from the leaders and intellectuals of the Third World, whose social position as colonized provides the social foundation for understanding structures of domination.

     The limited historical consciousness and subtle Eurocentrism of the Green Party Platform is manifest throughout the document and in various ways.  (1) It scarcely mentions colonialism, neocolonialism and imperialism, and it provides no evidence of awareness of the central tenet of the Third World perspective, namely, the colonial and neocolonial foundation of the world-system.  It makes specific recommendations with respect to a few Third World nations (Iran, Palestine, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Kurdistan and Hawaii) which more or less point to a progressive agenda in foreign affairs, and it vaguely calls for cooperation with all the world; but it falls far short of explaining the need for a redirection of US foreign policy toward North-South cooperation.

     (2)  The Green Party Platform demonstrates limited awareness of the great struggles for national and social liberation that have propelled the peoples of the Third World for the last 100 years.  It does not mention the Chinese Revolution, the Vietnamese Revolution, the Cuban Revolution, the Sandinista Revolution, and the Bolivarian Revolution, all of which have had significant impact on the foreign policy of the United States and the consciousness of the popular movements in the United States.  It calls for democratic reform of the United Nations, without acknowledging that this is an historic and contemporary demand of the Third World project.  It advocates reform of Free-Trade Agreements, without recognizing that progressive and Leftist Latin American governments have been developing alternatives to FTAs and have been pursuing a strategy of South-South cooperation in a quest for a more just, democratic and sustainable world-system.

    (3) The Green Party Platform displays a stunning lack of historical consciousness with respect to the United States.  It offers a couple of cryptic comments with respect to US history: “Our nation was born as the first great experiment in modern democracy;” and “Historically, America led the world in establishing a society with democratic values such as equal opportunity and protection from discrimination.”  It makes no effort to analyze the class, race and gender limitations of the American Revolution nor the evolution of these dynamics from 1776 to 1980.  It considers that belief in white supremacy was the cause of slavery, without understanding that African slavery in the Caribbean, Brazil and the US South was an economically-motivated integral structure of European colonial domination, and that racism emerged as a justification of this global political domination and economic superexploitation.  

     (4) The Green Party Platform demonstrates a limited understanding of US imperialism.  It rejects US neoliberal policies since 1980, without appreciating that imperialist penetration of foreign lands has been central to US policy since the beginning of the twentieth century, a consequence of its arrival to the stage of monopoly capital.  The Platform makes no effort to analyze neoliberalism as a new stage of imperialism; or as a neo-fascist violation of the tenets of imperialism that is rooted in the profound structural crisis of the world-system.  It treats contemporary problems as a consequence of the post-1980 neoliberal turn, without appreciating that they have long and deep historic roots.

     In addition to being ahistorical and Eurocentric, the Green Party Platform is decidedly unreflective.  It calls upon the people “to think deeply about the meaning of government of the people, by the people, and for the people,” but it does not provide leadership in reflecting on the meaning of democracy.  It merely proposes citizen participation, with apparent unawareness of alternative structures of popular democracy that have been developed in Cuba and in other nations.

      Consistent with its ahistorical, Eurocentric and unphilosophical perspective, the Platform presents the Green Party as an alternative to capitalism and socialism, without reflecting on the development of socialism in Third World nations for the last 100 years, and especially its manifestations in such nations as China, Vietnam, Indonesia, Egypt, Tanzania, Cuba, Chile, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador. The Platform displays a distrust of the state, without appreciating that a strong state, controlled by delegates of the people and acting decisively in the interests of the people, is the key to checking the power of large transnational corporations, as the history of Third World socialism shows.

     The Green Party Platform rightly affirms the fundamentals: the right of all nations to self-determination and sovereignty; the social and economic rights of all citizens of the United States and the world; the need for ecological sustainability; the principal of gender equality; and the importance of a reduction of US military expenditures.  But in order for an alternative political party to arrive to political power, it must obtain the support of the people, which would require it to demonstrate an understanding of the sources of the serious problems that the nation and humanity confront.  For in demonstrating such understanding, the Party would be showing to the people its capacity to lead the nation in a more positive direction.  And it would be showing its moral commitment, because no party could arrive to such understanding without the strong moral commitment of its leaders. Fortified by an evident understanding of historical and social dynamics and by fidelity to fundamental moral principles, such a party would be capable of earning the confidence and the support of the people.  This possibility for the evolution of the Green Party will be the subject of my next post. 


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Hillary Clinton or the Greens?

8/24/2016

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      On the CNN Green town hall, Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein suggested that there was little difference between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.  She expressed concern for Trump’s words, but equal concern for Clinton’s actions, focusing especially on the former Secretary of State’s role in wars and military interventions in the Middle East.  She lamented the line of argument in favor of choosing the lesser evil, for it prevents us from voting in accordance with our values.

      I maintain that there is a significant difference between Clinton and Trump, and that all progressives should come together in an anti-Trump movement in support of the candidacy of Hillary Clinton. Reflecting on the difference between liberalism and fascism, I have arrived to the conclusion that the Democratic Party has actively participated in the national turn since 1980 from liberalism to a new form of fascism with respect to foreign affairs, but not with respect to domestic affairs.  Meanwhile, the discourse of Trump implies, although not consistently, a continuation of fascism in the international arena, and a turn to fascism in domestic affairs.

     Both liberalism and fascism are forms of capitalist-class domination, and both have emerged as projects with global projections.  They differ with respect to strategies of domination.  The central global strategy of liberalism is domination of other lands through imperialism, a policy that seeks to economically, financially and ideologically penetrate other national economies with the support and cooperation of their national bourgeoisies and their governments.  Liberalism provides military support to cooperative governments throughout the world, including military governments, with the expectation that these governments will maintain control of their populations, including its radical and revolutionary sectors, through a combination of reformist concessions and repression.  Liberal policy dictates that direct military intervention by the core powers should be used only as a last resort.  Franklin D. Roosevelt referred to this restraint on military invention as being a “good neighbor.”

     For the most part, liberalism was the international policy of the United States from the 1890s to 1980.  Prior to the collapse of the European colonial empires, the United States, as an ascending power with a dramatically expanding economy, increasingly was able to economically and financially penetrate independent but poor nations, without having political control.  During the first half of the twentieth century, the United States increasingly projected itself as a global power that represented a progressive alternative to the European colonial empires.  The United States emerged from World War II as the global hegemonic power in a world that was in transition to a neocolonial world-system.  As the dominant economic power, the United States was able to economically, financially and ideologically penetrate formally independent nations of the Third World.

     Whereas liberalism is a viable international policy for a hegemonic nation with a decisive productive, commercial and financial advantage over other core nations, like the United States from 1946 to 1973, fascism is a more viable strategy for a core nation without such advantage.  In its classic twentieth century form, fascism involves the military seizing of control of the forces of production, commerce and banking, and the placing of them under military government control. Accordingly, fascism requires only military advantage, and not productive, commercial and financial advantage.  

     The United States began to lose its productive, commercial and financial advantage during the 1970s.  There were various factors that drove this phenomenon, including overspending in the military and insufficient investment in new forms of production as well as spending in excess of productive capacity.  Such hegemonic decline has been a normal tendency in the world-system, as hegemonic core powers spend in self-destructive ways that reflect and seek to maintain hegemony, whereas other core powers are more dedicated to improving their productive capacity in order to catch up.

     Beginning in 1980, the American power elite responded to the declining economic position of the United States by using its control of international financial institutions to impose neoliberal economic policies on the world.  The neoliberal turn violated the rules of imperialism and the neocolonial world-system.  Neoliberalism took away the limited national autonomy permitted by neocolonialism, thus undermining the economic interests of the national bourgeoisie and erecting greater barriers to the true sovereignty of the formerly colonized nations of the world (see “The characteristics of neocolonialism” 9/16/2013 as well as “IMF & USA attack the Third World project” 7/29/2016).  With its increasing control of the international media of information, the global elite presented this new phase of aggression by the core powers as a new era of democracy and free trade.
     
     The neoliberal turn was a short-term fix.  It facilitated the flow of capital from neocolonies to the core.  But the influx was not used to address the productive and commercial decline of the nation, so the United States continued its relative economic decline.  At the same time, it was clearly maintaining its military advantage, becoming more and more dependent on military spending and the military-industrial complex.  The combination of increasing military strength and declining economic capacity relative to other core nations made logical a turn to a foreign policy increasingly characterized by the direct military seizing of economic advantage through wars of aggression.  The neoconservatives grasped this logic, and they seized the attacks of September 11, 2001 as an opportunity for an ideological turn to greater militarism in foreign affairs.  An endless and all-embracing war against terrorism became an ideological frame for US foreign policy.  

      The turn to neoliberal global economic warfare, wars of aggression, and military interventions represents a definitive break with the neocolonial system, and it marks a turn from liberalism toward fascism.  Like classical fascism, it involves cooperation between the state and the bourgeoisie.  But it is a new form of fascism, in that transnational corporations have a stronger position in the alliance, and it is presented as a model of corporate control rather than state control.  

     Today’s liberals, well represented in the Green Party, reject this turn to a new form of fascism.  They yearn for an earlier purer era in which the United States maintained its dominance of the world-system and pursued its imperialist policies in the context of a world-system that pretended to respect the sovereignty of nations.  Even national elites of the great majority of formerly colonized nations participated in the pretense, giving it an apparent legitimacy, at least among the peoples of the core nations, who for the most part could not hear the protests of the popular movements of the Third World.  Liberals would like to somehow return to the pre-1980, pre-neoliberal, less militaristic and apparently more democratic world.

     Democratic presidential administrations have fully participated in the post-1980 turn from liberalism to neo-fascism in international affairs.  In this sense, the Green Party presidential candidate is right: there is not a great difference between the Democratic and Republican Parties with respect to foreign policy.  Both parties have responded to the US economic decline with increasing militarism.  Both are specialists in identifying external enemies in order to justify enormous military expenditures and constant preparedness for wars of aggression and military interventions.

      But what is the difference between liberalism and fascism in domestic affairs, and what does Trump’s discourse imply in this regard?  In the domestic arena, liberalism seeks to seduce the people through modest material rewards and ideological manipulation; whereas fascism uses force, violence, fear and repression.  Liberalism permits us to say and write anything we want, and to form any organizations to promote our values.  The corporate class has control of the public discourse through domination of the political leadership, the mass media and the educational system; therefore, it is confident that few of the people will give a serious hearing to radical organizations with an alternative agenda.  Liberalism for the most part does not imprison leaders of organizations promulgating an alternative direction for the nation, believing that they are not a threat to the established liberal, neocolonial and imperialist order.

      But there is no doubt that our people today are ill at ease, anxious as a result of developments that they do not understand, including the increasing political instability of the world-system and the continuing productive and commercial decline of the United States.  As a result, they could be more receptive to reasoned explanations of the possibilities for a more dignified nation and more just world, if they were to be presented with such a well-founded and well-presented alternative project.  At the same time, they are increasingly vulnerable to cunning messages that tap into their fears and anxieties.

     I have written in previous posts of the importance of Charismatic Leaders in revolutions.  Charismatic leaders are exceptional persons, gifted in their capacity to understand, with a profound commitment to moral principles and an unwavering fidelity to the people.  The charismatic leaders of revolutions are the prophets of our era, defending the cause of justice for the oppressed and the poor.  But there are other voices that emerge to influence the people in times of crisis.  These false leaders or false prophets are the opposite of charismatic leaders.  Whereas the charismatic leader has the capacity to appeal to the hopes and dreams of the people, the false leader appeals to the fears and anxieties of the people.
 
     Donald Trump is a master at the invention of messages that connect to the fears and anxieties of the people.  He has successfully exploited: popular anxiety that the government is not responding adequately to an uncontrolled immigration that is perceived as a threat to employment; a sense of loss among the people with respect to a national decline in traditional values pertaining to marriage, sexuality and religiosity; popular feeling that the nation has lost the power that it had in the world for most of the twentieth century, especially in the period 1946 to 1963; and a popular sentiment that the criminal justice system is too soft on criminals and not sufficiently supportive of police. As I have listened to soundbites of Trump’s discourses on television, I frequently have found myself saying, “This guy is on to something; he knows how to connect to the sentiments, fears and anxieties of our people.”  In my view, his only real slip-up was when he got into a polemic with the Islamic and immigrant parents of a US soldier killed in the line of duty, for in this case his anti-Islamic and anti-immigrant discourse was offending another deeply-felt popular sentiment, namely, patriotism and support for our troops in foreign lands.  

    If Trump arrives to power through a discourse that exploits popular fears and anxieties, what would be the next step?  Will there be arrests of leaders of progressive organizations, claiming that these organizations are supporting terrorism?  Will there be arrests of all persons considered socialist, under the pretext that these organizations are a threat to national security?  Will there be arrests of leaders of black organizations, with the pretense that they are preparing for an armed assault on police?  Will there be mass arrests of homosexuals, claiming that they undermine the moral fabric of the nations?  Such actions could be supported by significant numbers of the people, if manipulated into a frenzy by distortions of facts. Although the Green Party Platform condemns the increase in government surveillance of the people since September 11, 2001, Greens should not lose sight of the fact that surveillance is one thing; mass arrests, organized gang violence, and selective assassinations are another. We would be naïve to think that what has occurred since September 11 in the United States is anywhere near what could occur as the national and global crisis deepens, or what in fact occurred in Nazi Germany or in US-backed military dictatorships in Latin America. 

    Although it is difficult for many progressives to vote for Hillary Clinton because of her participation in what I describe as the turn to neo-fascism with respect to foreign policy, we must keep in mind that she and the Democratic Party remain committed to liberalism with respect to domestic affairs.  Although the Democratic Party has participated in the increased vigilance of citizens since September 11, it does not indulge in the scapegoating of racial, ethnic, religious, or sexual minorities or immigrants, as does Trump.  The rise to power of Hitler in the 1930s teaches us that scapegoating can be a precursor to policies of repression that could include large-scale arrests of leaders and the closing of progressive organizations and alternative media, nullifying freedoms of speech, press and organization and forcing many persons into exile.  Although the Democratic Party will continue to embrace global neo-fascism, there is little sign that it wants to turn to a new form of fascism on the domestic front.  On the contrary, it constantly invokes the discourse of inclusion, tolerance, diversity and multiculturalism.  It appears to be seeking a popular consensus on a balance of global neo-fascism and domestic liberalism

      The bourgeois freedoms of speech, press, and association, for the most part protected in the United States, fall far short of implying a truly democratic society.  But they are important rights.  In Latin America, after the fall of the military dictatorship and the transition to representative democracy, popular organizations were able to take advantage of these rights to form new political parties that were able to take power and redirect the domestic and foreign policies of their nations.  We in the United States must appreciate the importance of these rights, and we must act decisively to reject any discourse or candidate that implies a possible threat to them.  They are the foundation of our future emancipation, and they are an important national constitutional heritage that we have the duty to preserve.

     We also should keep in mind the limitations of the Green Party. Although strong enough to effect the outcome of the presidential election in key electoral college states, it does not have any possibility of influencing US policy after the elections, regardless of who wins.  

     Taking into account the importance of the preservation of constitutional rights, the possible threat to them implied by the discourse of Trump, and the impossibility of the Green Party to emerge as a serious political actor through the 2016 elections, the Green Party presidential candidate should withdraw, and call upon her supporters to vote for Clinton.  This would be the most honorable conduct at the moment, and therefore it would contribute to the strengthening of the Green Party in the long term, especially if done in a form that makes a reasoned and eloquent explanation and appeal to the people.  At this stage in its development, the progress of the Green Party is not measured by the percentage of votes that it receives in a presidential election, but by its capacity: to develop structures of popular education, including the identification and development of effective teaching strategies and materials; to expand its number of active local organizations, including projects of social action and popular education;  and to elect candidates at various levels, with the election of representatives to the US Congress being especially important, which ought to be a definite possibility in districts with high percentages of blacks, Latinos, and/or Native Americans.  At this stage, the most important function of a presidential candidate is not to garner votes, but to establish a presence in the public discourse.

     Independent of its conduct in the 2016 elections, the Green Party has much work to be done before it can present itself as a serious alternative to corporate liberalism in transition to fascism.  Its platform reflects what could be called white US liberalism or perhaps bourgeois liberalism.  The Green Party Platform is ahistorical, unphilosophical, and Eurocentric.  It demonstrates that the Green Party does not yet have sufficient understanding to redirect the foreign policy of the United States toward a necessary cooperation with the nations of Latin America and the Third World in the development of a just, democratic and sustainable world-system.  These are themes that I will pursue in the following posts.


Key words: Green Party, Jill Stein, Hillary Clinton, 2016 elections
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Neoliberalism and presidential elections

6/20/2016

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Posted June 23, 2016  

     An important insight in Asin Shivani’s article, “This Is Our Neoliberal Nightmare: Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, and Why the Market and the Wealthy Win Every Time” (Alternet, June 8, 2016), is that neoliberalism is more than economic policy.  It is a philosophy of life that interprets everything from the perspective of the market.  And as result of the fact that neoliberal policy and philosophy have dominated the public discourse of the nation since 1980, it has arrived to influence the beliefs and assumptions of many.  But not all.  Many people in US society are ill at ease with neoliberal philosophy and its cultural implications, without having the capacity to articulate their discomfort.

      Shivani maintains that the unarticulated divide among the people of the United States with respect to neoliberalism is playing itself out as a basic factor in the US presidential elections, without it being formulated as such.  Among the candidates, Hillary Clinton has been the fullest expression of neoliberalism.  Shivani writes:
​“In the current election campaign, Hillary Clinton has been the most perfect embodiment of neoliberalism among all the candidates.  She is almost its all-time ideal avatar, and I believe this explains, even if not articulated this way, the widespread discomfort among the populace toward her ascendancy. People can perceive that her ideology is founded on a conception of human beings striving relentlessly to become human capital (as her opening campaign commercial so overtly depicted).”
In Clinton’s view, education and health care are not conceived as rights that ought to be ensured by the state, but as consumer goods. Accordingly, one should invest in education in order to guarantee future capacity to provide education for children, health care, housing, transportation, and other consumer goods.  

     Bernie Sanders, in contrast, rejects neoliberal assumptions.  Sanders endorses the conventional progressive affirmation of the responsibility of the state to guarantee the social and economic rights of the people, such as education, health care, nutrition, and housing. Shivani writes:
​"The reason why Bernie Sanders, self-declared democratic socialist, is so threatening to neoliberalism is that he has articulated a conception of the state, civil society, and the self that is not founded in the efficacy and rationality of the market. He does not believe—unlike Hillary Clinton—that the market can tackle climate change or income inequality or unfair health and education outcomes or racial injustice, all of which Clinton propagates."
Sanders’ rejection of neoliberalism, however, is not formulated as such.  “Although Sanders doesn’t specify ‘neoliberalism’ as the antagonist, his entire discourse presumes it.”

     Donald Trump also rejects neoliberalism, but in a manner different from Sanders.  Shivani maintains that “Trump is an authoritarian figure whose conceptions of the state and of human beings within the state are inconsistent with the surface frictionlessness neoliberalism desires.”  And he asserts: “while Trump supporters want to take their rebellion in a fascist direction, their discomfort with the logic of the market is as pervasive as the Sanders camp.”  Trump represents an inhumane rejection of neoliberalism, in contrast to Sanders, who expresses a humane alternative to neoliberalism.

      Shivani interprets the emergence Sanders and Trump as an indication of the “breakdown of both major political parties.”  He attributes the breakdown to the frustration of the people, which has been caused by the fact that “there was no sustained intellectual movement to question the myth of the market” following the crash of 2008.    

     I submit that the failure of progressives to offer an alternative paradigm to the neoliberal myth was evident long before 2008.  It dates to 1980, when the nation took the neoliberal turn, and the Left failed to draw upon the insights of the various popular movements to formulate a comprehensive analysis and plan of action, delegitimizing the ahistorical and superficial discourse of neoliberalism.  The period of 1955 to 1972 was a revolutionary period in the United States, during which the fundamentals for an alternative progressive paradigm were formulated by popular movements.  The African-American movement had proposed: full political and civil rights for persons of color (NAACP, SCLC, SNCC); a coalition of the poor of all colors, including whites, for the attainment of social and economic justice (Dr. King’s Poor People’s Campaign); black control of black community institutions, including economic, political, educational, criminal justice, and cultural institutions (Malcolm’s formulation of black nationalism); and an end to imperialist policies with respect to the Third World (King and Malcolm). For its part, the student/anti-war movement: rejected the classical Marxist class analysis as not applicable to the United States; cast aside the anti-communism of American liberalism; and formulated an anti-imperialist perspective with respect to US foreign policy (SDS). Meanwhile, the women’s movement emerged with a gender consciousness that named patriarchy as a central dynamic of domination in human history and that called for full citizenship rights for women.  And the ecology movement emerged to defend the rights of the earth and to critique unsustainable forms of production and consumption.  All of these movements assumed a central role of the state in addressing issues of racial, gender, income, educational and health inequality as well as questions of global inequality and the ecological balance of the earth. None believed that these problems could be addressed by the market.  All possessed historical consciousness and a fundamentally accurate reading of contemporary national and global dynamics.  All appreciated the democratic heritage of the nation and were indignant at policies that intended to dominate and exploit in the name of democracy.

      Thus, all of the elements necessary for the formulation of an alternative paradigm were present in US political culture in 1980.  But we intellectuals and activists of the Left failed to formulate an alternative paradigm.  Academics have been trapped by the bureaucratization of the university and distorted assumptions with respect to scientific objectivity, and they have been unable to formulate an alternative interdisciplinary paradigm tied to political practice. Activists have been disconnected from intellectual work and have been unable to formulate an alternative comprehensive paradigm, and they have moved from issue to issue in the organization of protests. Intellectuals and activists of the Left have been unable to move forward with the revolutionary thinking and proposals of the period 1955 to 1972 in order to present to the people an alternative to the neoliberal paradigm, an alternative rooted in the historic struggles of the people for the attainment of full democracy.  Jesse Jackson pointed us in the right direction with his presidential campaigns of 1984 and 1988, but his project was rejected by white society (he received only 12% of white votes in the presidential primaries of 1988, as against 95% of the black vote and 67% of the Latino vote), and Rev. Jackson himself was not committed to the development of the Rainbow Coalition as a mass organization following the 1988 elections.

     Thus, the failure to seize upon the crash of 2008, converting it into an event that could galvanize the people into new ways of thinking and political action, was predictable, reflecting an historic failure that was rooted in the inability of the Left to build sustained popular movements in the post-1972 period.  

      We intellectuals and activists of the Left have the duty to offer an alternative understanding of national and international issues to our people, thus tapping into what Shivani has described as the unarticulated frustrations of our people.  Drawing upon the historic popular struggles in the United States, and also learning from revolutions in other lands, we have the capacity to formulate a progressive alternative that is more advanced and developed than that offered by Sanders.  A more comprehensive historical and global understanding, tied to concrete popular needs and to political action, could be more attractive to our people that what Sanders has offered, and it could eclipse the potential for fascism that Trump represents. This is the challenge and the duty that we intellectuals and activists of the Left confront in the years ahead.

     Please take a look at an earlier post, “Presidential primaries in USA” 8/25/2015.  I maintained that the unexpected success of Sanders and Trump in the presidential primaries is an indication that the people of the United States are not satisfied with the two mainstream political parties and established politicians.  And I argued that the emergence of Sanders and Trump suggests that intellectuals and activists should reflect on the possibility of an alternative political party of the Left, giving consideration to the characteristics that such an alternative political party ought to have.


​Key words: neoliberalism, presidential elections, Clinton, Sanders, Trump, Shivani
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What should Bernie Sanders have done?

5/2/2016

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​     Jeffrey St. Clair, editor of CounterPunch, published his article “Bernie Sanders: the Candidate Who Came in From the Cold” on April 22, 2016 (www.counterpunch.org).  St. Clair maintains that Sanders is a reformist liberal and not a revolutionary socialist, and that he has been oriented to liberal incrementalism his entire political career, in spite of his cultivation of an image of himself as a political cynic and a professional outsider.  During the Sanders presidential campaign, it has become increasingly evident that what had been promoted as a “movement” has turned out to be a “fairly conventional campaign,” in St. Clair’s view.

     What might Sanders have done if he were leading a real movement?  St. Clair writes:
​What might a real movement have done? If Sanders could turn 30,000 people out for a pep rally in Washington Square Park, why couldn’t he have had a flash mob demonstration mustering half that many fervent supporters to shut down Goldman Sachs for a day? If he could lure 20,000 Hipsters to the Rose Garden in Portland, why couldn’t he turn out 10,000 Sandernistas to bolster the picket lines of striking Verizon workers? If Sanders could draw 15,000 people in Austin, Texas, why couldn’t his movement bring 5,000 people to Huntsville to protest executions at the Texas death house? If Sanders could draw 18,000 people to a rally in Las Vegas, why couldn’t he just as easily have lead them in a protest at nearby Creech Air Force Base, the center of operations for US predator drones?. . .  Instead of being used as stage props, why hasn’t Sanders put his teaming crowds of eager Sandernistas to work doing the things that real movements do: blocking the sale of a foreclosed house in Baltimore, disrupting a fracking site in rural Pennsylvania, shutting down the entrance to the police torture chamber at Homan Square in Chicago for a day, intervening between San Diego cops and the homeless camp they seek to evict? Why? Because that’s not who Bernie Sanders is and that’s not what his movement is about. He’s willing to rock the neoliberal boat, but not sink it.
     In maintaining that the Sanders campaign should have organized sustained protest actions with respect to a variety of issues in order to bring an end to neoliberalism, St. Clair mirrors the limited understanding of the Left in the United States.  Although it might appear that such a direct action strategy is more radical and thus in some sense more effective in defending just causes, we really need to ask a series of questions.  How exactly would a campaign of direct action bring down neoliberalism?  What would be the effect of such a campaign on those federal government officials who are responsible for neoliberal policies, whom presumably the campaign would be trying to pressure?  What would be effect of the campaign on the people, whose support would be necessary in order to end neoliberal policies?  Is the goal of a project of revolutionary socialism merely the end of neoliberal policies, or does it have a more fundamental objective?

       If we were to study the revolutions of the twentieth century and today, we would see that revolutions did indeed organize protests with respect to specific issues, and the protests sometimes obtained concessions from the ruling political class.  But fundamental change occurs not by pressuring elites to make concessions to popular demands, but by displacing the elite from power and replacing it with representatives of the people’s interests.   Triumphant revolutions over the past 100 years formed organizations and political parties that had the conscious intention of taking political power, and they astutely analyzed their political contexts in order to figure out how to do so.

     If Bernie Sanders were a revolutionary socialist, he would have formed an alternative political party that would have dedicated itself for years to forming the consciousness of the people, educating them concerning the necessity of the popular taking of power and the characteristics of the alternative society that the empowered people would seek to construct.  The alternative political party would seek the election of candidates to Congress as well as the presidency, so that the alternative political party would control two of the five principal structures of power in the United States (the other three being the judiciary, the military and the mass media).

       But Bernie Sanders is not a revolutionary socialist.  He never has been.  And in this respect, St. Clair is right.

      For further reflection on this theme, see “Presidential primaries in USA” 8/25/2015 in the category of Revolution and also in the category On the Vanguard.


Key words:  Bernie Sanders, socialism, revolution, reform
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Presidential primaries in USA

8/25/2015

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     In times of crisis and uncertainty, the people lose faith in established mainstream political institutions, and they simultaneously turn to both the Right and the Left.  This occurred, for example, in Europe following the First World War.

     The emergence of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders as significant contenders for the nominations of the Republican and Democratic parties is a sign that US voters are increasingly disenchanted with the two traditional political parties and with mainstream political institutions, inasmuch as both Trump and Sanders are marginal members of their respective parties, and both adopt a discourse more to the Right and to the Left of their parties.

     The growing lack of faith in mainstream politics indicates that the time may be ripe for a third party of the Left in the United States, as has occurred in Latin America, where new parties of the Left have been formed since 1995 and have captured control of governments in a number of nations, utilizing electoral procedures of representative democracy.  The new parties reacted to and took advantage of the cooperation of national elites and their political pawns in the imposition of the neoliberal project by the global powers.

      The neoliberal turn of global elites in 1980 occurred as a result of the structural crisis of the world-system, the first signs of which emerged during the 1970s.  The crisis has been caused principally by the fact that the world-system has overreached its geographical and ecological limits.  Since the sixteenth century, the world-system expanded through the conquest and domination of new lands and peoples, thus incorporating more natural resources, additional reserves of cheap labor, and new markets.  But this mechanism for productive and commercial expansion has been eroded since the middle of the twentieth century, when the system reached the geographical limits of the earth.  New technologies can increase productivity on existing land, and additional natural recourses can be discovered, but these possibilities do not provide for the sufficient growth of the system (see various posts in the section on the crisis of the world system).

      But the effort by global elites to increase levels of exploitation through the imposition of neoliberal policies does not address the source of the crisis.  Moreover, the neoliberal project has provoked popular rejection in both peripheral and core zones during the last twenty years, thus creating a situation in which the world-system is not only ecologically but also politically unsustainable.

     Coinciding with the structural crisis of the world-system, the United States has entered a period of productive, commercial and financial decline relative to other core powers.  Excessive military expenditures, rampant consumerism, insufficient investment in manufacturing, and uncontrolled financial speculation have contributed to its decline since the early 1970s.  The decline of hegemonic core powers following their ascent to hegemonic dominance is a normal phenomenon.  But the coincidence of the structural crisis of the world-system with the decline of the hegemonic core power, provoking its turn to unilateral neo-fascist militarism, has accelerated a global turn to chaos.  

     Political discourse in the United States lacks the capacity to explain the sources of the crisis of the world-system and the relative decline of the nation.  So anxiety grows among the people.  They increasingly are losing faith in mainstream political institutions.  They are turning more and more to unconventional approaches, which in the case of the presidential primaries are represented by the candidacies of Trump and Sanders.  

     But neither Trump nor Sanders points to the necessary road.  Trump’s discourse taps into fear and ignorance, and its ultimate logic would be a fascist order that would be far from democracy and social justice.  Sanders heads in the right direction, but in a far too limited form.  He has no discourse to explain the world systemic crises and the national decline nor to formulate a comprehensive national project that seeks democracy and social justice on a global scale.  Furthermore, what is needed at this moment is not a presidential candidate representing one of the two established parties, but an alternative political party.  

     The success that Sanders has had with his superficial discourse of the Left does indicate, however, that the people may be ready to follow the lead of an alternative political party of the Left that seeks to take power and govern in the name of the people.  That is to say, the people in the United States may be prepared for revolution, which would be the fourth stage in the American Revolution, the first three being the periods of 1763-1789 (establishing political independence), 1829-1876 (abolishing slavery), and 1955-72 (establishing fundamental civil and political rights for minorities and women).

      If we follow the example of successful revolutions in the world of the past 100 years, a revolutionary party of the people of the United States would need an effective manifesto and platform.  The manifesto would explain global historical dynamics, so that the people would be able to understand the crisis of the world-system and the national decline as well as the necessary constructive responses by the nation.  The platform, on the other hand, would formulate specific proposals that would address the concrete needs of the people.

      Whereas revolutions in other lands often have resulted in new constitutions, constitutional amendments would be more appropriate in the case of the United States.  More than 200 years of constitutional continuity is a significant achievement, and it should not be cast aside.  Moreover, the road of constitutional amendment is an historic legacy of the three earlier revolutionary stages of the US popular movement, resulting in the Bill of Rights; the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth amendments; and the proposal in the 1970s for a constitutional amendment affirming equal citizenship rights for women.  In the present historic moment, the revolutionary party should propose four constitutional amendments affirming: (1) that women have full constitutional rights; (2) that democratic rights include social and economic rights, such as education, health care, nutrition, housing, and a minimum standard of living; (3) that the foreign policy of the nation must respect the full sovereignty of all nations; and (4) that the government has the right and the duty to take measures necessary for the ecological balance of the earth.

      Concrete platform proposals could include: reduction of taxes for the middle and working classes and a tax increase on corporations and the wealthy; the replacement of student loans with direct grants and the forgiveness of existing student debt; infrastructural investment to provide for needs in housing and urban public transportation and to provide employment; a minimum-wage increase; structures of community control to facilitate crime prevention, prevent police violence, and increase citizen participation; a domestic partnership law to ensure fairness for gay couples living together; expansion of structures supporting adoption and single-parenthood as alternatives to abortion, while affirming the principle of reproductive rights and the legality of abortion; universal social programs that provide support for persons in need, regardless of race, ethnicity or gender; an anti-imperialist foreign policy of North-South cooperation, with constructive proposals with respect to sovereign nations that have been demonized, such as Venezuela and Iran; cooperation with other nations in order to reduce illegal immigration, trafficking in human persons, and illegal drug trafficking; reduction of expenditures on high-technology military weapons, combined with the increasing use of the armed forces for emergency relief and construction projects throughout the world; expansion of government support for public television; and campaign finance reform, with the goal of eliminating the dependency of political candidates on the contributions of the wealthy.

      The revolutionary party should have the long-range goal of seeking to capture the presidency and the Congress in a period of twenty-five years, cultivating allies in the judiciary and the military during this period.  Its focus initially should be on the education and organization of the people, rather than on the election of candidates.  However, in the short-term, candidates could be nominated in Congressional districts with favorable demographic characteristics, such as districts with high percentages of blacks, Latinos or Native Americans.  Elected members of the Congress in these demographically favorable districts could play an important role in the education of the people throughout the nation with respect to the perspective, values, and proposals of the revolutionary party.

      The revolutionary party should be launched when there is significant support for the new political party from prominent public intellectuals and personalities, including political leaders affiliated with the Democratic Party who are prepared to cast their lot with the new party, in consideration of the challenges that the nation and humanity confront in the present historic moment.


Key words:  Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders, revolution, revolutionary party

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    Author: Charles McKelvey

    Retired professor, writer,  and Marxist-Leninist-Fidelist-Chavist revolutionary

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