Red_Canadian posted:Well I hate to point this out, but weren't Marx and Engels parents both petit bourgeois? Aren't most of us? I mean, the poor tend to be focused on their survival.
...wtf...
Sanders is “sheepdogging” for the Democrats: This is self-fulfilling prophecy that presupposes that the mass of Americans are indeed sheep that can be easily herded into to this or that politician’s pen. This argument would carry more weight if Sanders were merely feinting left, with vague Obama-esque marketing slogans. But clearly he is propounding a refreshingly frank and specific policies to reverse the ever-intensifying inequalities and injustices of the status quo, slashing with finely honed specifics against the abuses of the billionaire elite.
There is only one left issue: an end to foreign wars and global imperialism. Sanders does not intend to reverse this policy. The article talks about two lefts: the left and the "radical" left. Actually, Kaufman is on the "right" when it comes to the issue, "should the radical left support the Sanders nomination?" So from here on we will refer to the left, who do not support foreign wars, and liberals, who do. Liberals can be "progressive" but they still thirst for foreign blood.
Even if Sanders loses the nomination, the progressive issues and solutions he is purveying to a mass audience will embed firmly in popular political thought and action, making a future breakaway into political independence easier, not harder.
Citation needed. Note that this is also an argument that Sanders and their liberals do not need support from the left, but in fact the left should do more to push their own issue, which is an end to imperialist murder abroad.
Sanders has vowed to support whoever is nominated by the Democratic Party: This is really a corollary of the “sheepdogging” thesis, and the answer to it is simple: So what? A rumpled 73-year-old is commanding a mass audience not for sex appeal but for his passion and clarity on substance; he is galvanizing a huge groundswell of issue-focused voters and activists who would otherwise not be engaged in politics at all. A whole generation of voters will be more receptive to any future left campaigns—including independent ones—thanks to his exertions, notwithstanding any personal endorsements he makes a year from now.
This is really a restatement of the previous paragraph and doesn't make a new point. He is galvanizing a huge groundswell of voters who don't mind continuing American invasions across the planet.
Sanders is not a “true” socialist: This is another “so what?” coupled to a “who cares?”
I suppose the people who are going to bombed by the Sanders administration will care.
We need only recall that the Bolsheviks, socialists who actually made a revolution rather than merely bloviating about it, deployed as their main agitational slogan not “socialism now” or “nationalize the means of production”—they reached the masses by advancing the very concrete “land, bread and peace,” sensibly grasping that desperate workers and peasants were more interested in tangibles than abstractions. This is a lesson well worth pondering for the armchair revolutionaries leading the charge against Sanders.
When the Bolsheviks used this slogan, there was a world war threatening Russia's existence and there was mass starvation in Moscow. But let's just re-examine that "socialist" quote from those Suddenly Socialists the Bolsheviks, "land, bread and peace." Does Sanders offer anything like this? I don't know about land or bread, but Sanders is firmly anti-peace. That's why I don't support him, as a leftist.
We can see that there is little else to respond to in this essay, so let's skip ahead.
And let’s pose this question to those who argue from probability: What if the long shot Sanders comes through and wins the nomination and/or general election? Then what would you do?
I would advocate for him to be hanged for war crimes against the people of the third world.
We face planetary emergencies of unprecedented gravity. Some reputable scientists say that it might be too late to avert them. ...The Sanders campaign ... is a tentative first step of hope that Americans can be roused in sufficient numbers to help save humanity from itself.
Scientists actually say that it is too late. There is no "might be." Sanders is going to rouse Americans to look after their class interests through foreign wars, just as they have done for two hundred years.
Here's the lesson from the Bolsheviks that Kaufman ignores. The provisional government formed after the February Revolution continued an unpopular and bloody war. The "radical" left Bolsheviks were able to say in the October Revolution, "We do not support this war." That is the position that leads to actual progress.
aerdil posted:lesser-evilism and overton window nonsense gets paraded around every election cycle to appeal leftists into voting for the democrat. he could have literally written that same article in 2008 with almost all the logic intact about obama, it's just now after eight years the writer has the hindsight of realizing it was "vague Obama-esque marketing slogans." sanders might be more overtly social democratic, but he's of similar ilk in the grand scheme of liberal ideology.
he's an imperialist whose suggested domestic policy would require a swift expansion of u.s. conquest of the world to fund which is a crazy coincidence since that's what he's been backing in congress for years and all across the country for the last year. i also think all of that shit is impossible to achieve to the necessary degree anyway so naturally i want to be seen & heard supporting geocentrism & spontaneous generation of flies from meat. workers of the world, layyy you dowwwn....on a bed of rooooses, for tonight i sleeeep on a be e ed of naaaaails...
cars posted:spontaneous generation of flies from meat
Great metaphor yo
Red_Canadian posted:Well perfect if this is crux of this issue, do you really think Hillary Clinton is better in this regard? Or any of the republican candidates? I think someone who voted against the war in Iraq, said the Monroe doctrine was shit, and said that there is good people on both sides of Israel and Palestine is far superior to anyone else who has any chance of being elected president. Third world movements could use a bit of breathing room.
"If we don't stop extending our troops all around the world in nation-building missions, then we're going to have a serious problem coming down the road. And I'm going to prevent that." -George W Bush, 2000 AD
Red_Canadian posted:I know I took some flak for supporting bernie in the past, and I certainly understand the criticism and don't deny he is far from the perfect candidate, his refusal to deny the success of the Cuban revolution, his clear derision for the Monroe doctrine, and his even-handed view of Israel-Palestine (which while not correct is still miles better than every other major candidates' Israel can do no wrong position), make me even more hopeful of his success.
I'm just getting caught up in thread but did anyone mention Trump's proposals on I/P are better than Sanders?
cars posted:why have you concluded that the optimal strategy to avoid the ultra-left is to argue for the right, which as a communist you should consider empirically bankrupt if not outright built to capture those other sectors of society?
this same question but about why the psychopath left seems to think trump is preferable any anyone else
cars posted:i have a policy against ifapping people for being too stupid about communism to post here, for obvious reasons, but you're really pushing it
i know comparatively little about communism, i'm here to learn about it!
(so far I've learned that grimes is a great musician, how to get censured at my job for twitter posts, and how not to write books while doing morphine.)
Perfect is the enemy of good.
c_man posted:this same question but about why the psychopath left seems to think trump is preferable any anyone else
as getfiscal used to like to put it, i'm not sure this is the problem leftists need to be worried about right now
swampman posted:Red_Canadian posted:Well perfect if this is crux of this issue, do you really think Hillary Clinton is better in this regard? Or any of the republican candidates? I think someone who voted against the war in Iraq, said the Monroe doctrine was shit, and said that there is good people on both sides of Israel and Palestine is far superior to anyone else who has any chance of being elected president. Third world movements could use a bit of breathing room.
"If we don't stop extending our troops all around the world in nation-building missions, then we're going to have a serious problem coming down the road. And I'm going to prevent that." -George W Bush, 2000 AD
you gotta admit though, the guy really didnt send troops all over the world to build shit
Red_Canadian posted:What are some speeches or votes where he promoted foreign wars?
by he are you referring to sanders because if so
c_man posted:cars posted:why have you concluded that the optimal strategy to avoid the ultra-left is to argue for the right, which as a communist you should consider empirically bankrupt if not outright built to capture those other sectors of society?
this same question but about why the psychopath left seems to think trump is preferable any anyone else
this is 5 people on fb and one or two trolls here, lets not say theyre the same as the larger group being discussed
Edited by Urbandale ()
c_man posted:ah yes, i forgot, no one should say baby newton is a dumbass as long as more people are participating in american elections
I'm not sure what exactly you're talking about on this page - are you just bitter because your liberal politics are full of shit and nobody is willing to pretend differently? Or are you actually, truly concerned that saying (rightly) that a Sanders presidency would be as bad - in terms of foreign policy, the only point that matters - as a Trump presidency, will somehow make Communists less legitimate in the eyes of the American public?
remember his department of peace? *sighs and farts*
the 8 billion election threads on this forum have an even more tedious back and forth repetition than the Stalin thread.
Urbandale posted:youre going out of your way to call someone an idiot with a tortured metaphor that doesnt work at all and im being really nice and subtly tipping you off that youre being a dumb before you make an ass of yourself in the walmart checkout line again mom
Im saying that if you think that caring about us elections is actually a huge waste of energy then getting upset and paranoid about a trump rally ending is no better than thinking sanders being president is valuable for socialists. Save your bullshit about "being nice"
swampman posted:There is only one left issue: an end to foreign wars and global imperialism. Sanders does not intend to reverse this policy.
how bad is he on this really, because in the past he's said the cia should be abolished and even though he's backed off that he's still to this day talking about allende in chile, and the sandinistas, he was against the iraq war and the libyan invasion, and in terms of exploitation of third world labor i'm not entirely sure but i think his longstanding and continued opposition to free trade deals is positive in that regard. i know he will be able to do/change very little if he were elected but i still think the neoliberal class would shit themselves if it happened.
ilmdge posted:how bad is he on this really, because in the past he's said the cia should be abolished and even though he's backed off that he's still to this day talking about allende in chile, and the sandinistas, he was against the iraq war and the libyan invasion, and in terms of exploitation of third world labor i'm not entirely sure but i think his longstanding and continued opposition to free trade deals is positive in that regard. i know he will be able to do/change very little if he were elected but i still think the neoliberal class would shit themselves if it happened.
he's also going to close guantanamo, just like obama did!! won't that be lovely.
c_man posted:i dont agree. apparently who's voting for whom is important to care about, because we all know from baby newton that black people voting in democratic primaries means that racism is over, and a trump rally getting shut down is the beginning of real fascism in america
all right i declare you official sheriff of those guys and also anyone who gets the power to shoot gamma rays out of their eyes.
Themselves posted:i remember in 2000 something when dennis kucinich was running. i thought that was pretty anti imperialist for my time. compared to bernie he still does seem somewhat "radical", as michaelangelo from the ninja turtles would say.
remember his department of peace? *sighs and farts*
Kucinich was badass. Especially because his big thing was he believed in UFOs lol