Algund Eenboom posted:

GalacticAcid posted:

Politics will stop being the number one thing everybody thinks about all the time and they’ll go back to posting about video games or whatever they did when Obama was president

GalacticAcid posted:

Politics will stop being the number one thing everybody thinks about all the time and they’ll go back to posting about video games or whatever they did when Obama was president

Cpt_Obvious posted:

Can't play videogames if you don't have a home!

THS posted:

if biden wins im going back to gbs

GalacticAcid posted:

*with my dying breath*

bernie panders,

Algund Eenboom posted:

Algund Eenboom posted:

Wheres the post here when someone said "In Amerika, saying lynching is bad is a logical fallacy" that was a funny post

Dreylad posted:

maybe I'm missing the thrust of the argument here, and I may be a beb idiot, but the whole nojoe thing seems predicated on the idea that the democratic party has to actually commit to earning people's vote through concrete policy proposals instead of just wailing and shrieking and scolding for it.

on the other hand, if they were to actually commit to M4A and other leftwing policies, I don't know how many people who would then vote anyway, not wanting to once again be the Charlie Brown to the DNC's Lucy.

gradenko_2000 posted:

https://twitter.com/theintercept/status/1290951065374990336?s=19

croup coughfield posted:

I think it was someone in this thread a couple days ago who said CPUSA either explicitly or tacitly endorsed Biden - is there a source for that? I can't seem to find anything.

quote:

The youth vote and the socialist moment

March 25, 2020

After the first three rounds of “Super Tuesday” which followed Bernie Sanders’ victories in the Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada primaries/caucuses, it has become clear that a majority of primary voters believe that Joe Biden is the best candidate to defeat Donald Trump in the November 2020 elections. Unfortunately, the youth vote is being blamed for “not turning out for Bernie.” The truth is, they are not turning out for Biden either. Why not?

Polls show that 70% of millennials (ages 23–38) prefer socialism or would not mind voting for a socialist presidential candidate. But if this were the case, why are they not out there voting for Bernie and “socialism” as they understand it? Some analysts argue that the youth vote is a “third party” of its own, which has divided the Democratic vote. Others claim that voter suppression contributes to low voter turnout. Difficult registration processes, for example, disproportionately affect youth, since people under 30 years old change their address twice as often as those over 30. Voter suppression also takes the form of mismanaged polling stations which make you wait for hours in line after closing.

But even with these factors considered, does the overwhelming majority of youth feel their interests are represented by the candidates? Maybe not. If 70% of millennials were out there voting for Bernie in the primaries in addition to the people over 40 who support him too, why has Biden taken three primaries? And does this mean that the “socialist moment” will die with Bernie’s campaign? Absolutely not.

The progressive, left-of-center campaign of Bernie Sanders has shifted the conversation to the left, literally! “Socialism,” now a household word, is not as feared as it was decades ago.

Even the majority of voters who believe Biden to be more electable still support Sanders’ message and program. African-Americans who have turned out in record-breaking numbers to support Biden are contrasted with Latinos who prefer Sanders. Not to mention that exit polls show that Biden supporters in some areas approve of Sanders’ program when it comes to Medicare for All. But where is the youth vote in all of this? And what role will the youth play in the November elections? Can Biden defeat Trump without the youth vote? Maybe not.

The baby boomer generation has overwhelmed the youth vote, and therefore Biden is winning the primaries. However, we should also beware of compiling the “youth vote” into one homogeneous block. After all, white youth in the Middle and Deep South vote differently than white youth in the Northeast and the Black youth of the urban North, not to mention the Latino youth of the Southwest and West Coast. Over-generalizations regarding the youth, Latino, and Black votes are not helpful in the struggle for unity against the extreme right. With that said, there are issues that these groups can overwhelmingly agree on: student debt forgiveness, affordable healthcare and housing, quality and/or free education, and an end to police violence and inhumane deportations. This is why working-class unity around the issues must be emphasized above unity around any bourgeois candidate.

The Communist Party USA does not endorse bourgeois candidates and emphasizes how workers of all ages should unite, and organize around the issues rather than around individual personalities. As we head into the 2020 presidential elections, youth must mobilize to fight the fascist danger represented by Trump despite their dislike for the two-party system. It is our future that is at stake. But the struggle goes beyond electoral politics, of course. We must defeat Trump and the GOP while working to build a mass movement for socialism in this country. Voter registration is a good way to start this conversation. Local candidates and issues often resonate more deeply for younger people. Bringing youth and students into the process at this level by registering people to vote can help down the road guarantee an electoral win for liberals and progressives over the reactionary right-wing in this country.

Let’s be clear: even a centrist Biden presidency could prevent further setbacks for civil rights, women’s reproductive rights, immigrant rights, and labor rights provided there is mass pressure from below. Thus, we must be sure that the working-class define this struggle instead of the Democratic Party machine. Also, Sanders may be the face of the “socialist moment,” but it is the youth that will carry on his legacy and continue to build the movement long after Sanders, Biden, and Trump are dead and in the ground.

So, let’s ask ourselves: if it does come down to Biden vs. Trump, who would be more likely to forgive student debt, expand healthcare, protect immigrant families, and take actions to mitigate the climate crisis? Who are we more likely to convince to shift their decisions in a more progressive direction? Who would our Cuban, Venezuelan, and Nicaraguan comrades prefer to see in the White House, considering the U.S. imperialist blockade loosened up during the Obama administration? Our short-term tactics and strategy are not limited to voting for the “lesser of two evils,” since, at the end of the day, we are building a mass movement for socialism and that means we must continue to push for unity, organization, and radicalization around the issues and not around bourgeois politicians. The youth must play an essential role in this struggle so that the socialist movement will continue to live on. We will define the struggle and the socialist moment. We shall overcome!

gradenko_2000 posted:

https://www.cpusa.org/party_voices/the-youth-vote-and-the-socialist-moment/

gradenko_2000 posted:

https://twitter.com/theintercept/status/1290951065374990336?s=19

quote:

Hamilton’s vision matters today, Parenti argue, because in order the for the United States to transform its economy rapidly enough to stave off cataclysmic climate change, we need not look to socialist experiments in foreign countries or the writings of Karl Marx, but simply to Hamilton, a key architect of the Constitution, the lead author of the Federalist Papers, and, as Treasury secretary, the government official most responsible for shaping and structuring the executive branch as it exists today. While Hamilton only succeeded in implementing roughly half of his agenda, the left should use liberal intoxication with the myth of Hamilton to drive home the other half.

quote:

The half Hamilton accomplished likely saved the U.S. from falling into a postcolonial enfeebled state status, as befell Central and South American governments that largely failed to carry out a national project on a similar scale. Parenti compares Hamilton’s vision to that of Simon Bolivar, arguing that if Bolivar had succeeded and Hamilton failed, the balance of power in this hemisphere would be reversed today. Still, there was much more to his project, which he laid out in various places, but most comprehensively in his “Report on Manufactures” delivered to Congress in 1791.

gradenko_2000 posted:

All of the countries in yellow are full of sexual predators, correct

GalacticAcid posted:

Central Intelligence Affairs

https://twitter.com/nathanjrobinson/status/1291181799872376832?s=21

GalacticAcid posted:

Central Intelligence Affairs

https://twitter.com/nathanjrobinson/status/1291181799872376832?s=21

Algund Eenboom posted:

Cpt_Obvious posted:

Can't play videogames if you don't have a home!

quote:

Like most British socialists, Orwell had never been a Marxist. The dialectical-materialist philosophy had always been too abstruse for him. From instinct rather than consciousness he had been a staunch rationalist. The distinction between the Marxist and the rationalist is of some importance. Contrary to an opinion widespread in Anglo-Saxon countries, Marxism is not at all rationalist in its philosophy: it does not assume that human beings are, as a rule, guided by rational motives and that they can be argued into socialism by reason. Marx himself begins Das Kapital with the elaborate philosophical and historical inquiry into the ‘fetishistic’ modes of thought and behaviour rooted in ‘commodity production’ – that is, in man’s work for, and dependence on, a market. The class struggle, as Marx describes it, is anything but a rational process. This does not prevent the rationalists of socialism describing themselves sometimes as Marxists. But the authentic Marxist may claim to be mentally better prepared than the rationalist is for the manifestations of irrationality in human affairs, even for such manifestations as Stalin’s Great Purges. He may feel upset or mortified by them, but he need not feel shaken in his Weltanschauung, while the rationalist is lost and helpless when the irrationality of the human existence suddenly stares him in the face. If he clings to his rationalism, reality eludes him. If he pursues reality and tries to grasp it, he must part with his rationalism.