There is a spectrum haunting C-SPAM. I, on the contrary,

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DOCTOR ZIMBARDO: May 8, 2006

Hell yeah, thanks for making this thread. PSL is legit. Think they're gonna get my vote and my donations this year.

Aliquid posted:

Assad not a butcher? Are they in the "but Putin stands up to US imperialism!" camp?

# ¿ Jan 21, 2016 04:23

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 19:04

DOCTOR ZIMBARDO: May 8, 2006

Homework Explainer posted:

snip

Thank you for your memes, hard work and good ideology, comrade

# ¿ Jan 21, 2016 06:04

DOCTOR ZIMBARDO: May 8, 2006

pretty funny to watch "bernistas" come in here to red-bait, talk poo poo about non-usamerican socialists, and wave endorsements around

# ¿ Jan 21, 2016 19:23

DOCTOR ZIMBARDO: May 8, 2006

no actually i welcome the attention of bernie supporters, because i think they should look into the PSL, especially when Bernie drops out in April or so. however i will enthusiastically point out their enormous hypocrisy

# ¿ Jan 21, 2016 20:53

DOCTOR ZIMBARDO: May 8, 2006

Europe is doing real well with social democracy these days huh? Too bad it's unsustainable and it gets dismantled in austerity, or it creates a super-exploited national/racial underclass. The rate of profit declines no matter where you are, and eventually the ownership of the means of production comes into question.

I wonder if that creation of a superexploited racial underclass is why Bernie considers reparations "unrealistic" (in stark contrast to his healthcare plan)

# ¿ Jan 21, 2016 23:44

DOCTOR ZIMBARDO: May 8, 2006

Jewel Repetition posted:

No it doesn't doctor Zimbardo.

class collaboration is great and crisis isnt inherent to capitalism!

*bites a snickers*

oh wow, crisis was inherent to capitalism the whole time! i sure am a fascist when i get hungry

# ¿ Jan 21, 2016 23:55

DOCTOR ZIMBARDO: May 8, 2006

Jewel Repetition posted:

Phase 1: Massive loss of human life through state suppression and famine
Phase 2: ???
Phase 3: Utopia

But enough about liberalism,

# ¿ Jan 22, 2016 08:37

DOCTOR ZIMBARDO: May 8, 2006

Yudo posted:

your ideology is even more bloodthirsty than liberalism

[citation needed]

# ¿ Jan 22, 2016 15:20

DOCTOR ZIMBARDO: May 8, 2006

Jewel Repetition posted:

The similarity is because communists are bad, not because fascists are good.

A talking point invented by the John Birch Society in the 50's along with other reactionary propaganda.

# ¿ Jan 22, 2016 21:44

DOCTOR ZIMBARDO: May 8, 2006

Yudo is great, tell us more about how communists are trying to immanentize the eschaton, Mr. All-Varsity College Republican Debate & Book Club

# ¿ Jan 23, 2016 00:07

DOCTOR ZIMBARDO: May 8, 2006

Apropos of Sander's shameful nonanswer to the question of reparations I thought maybe I'd share some of the relevant items from the PSL platform to help clue folks in on some better answers to that question in case they ever end up as a standard bearer for the so-called radical left:

quote:

There shall be primary government institutions created guaranteeing representation of all nationalities inside the United States. In recognition of centuries of national oppression and systematic exclusion, and to protect the interests of all, the new government structures would be constructed to assure equal representation from all nationalities in the United States.
The current legal and criminal justice system is infested with racism and class privilege, and shall be replaced by a new justice system based on the democratic organization of the working class and its right to defend its class interests on the basis of solidarity and unity.

quote:

The new government shall recognize the inviolable right of all oppressed nations to self-determination with regard to their means of gaining and maintaining their liberation. In the United States, this includes the right of self-determination for African American, Native, Puerto Rican and other Latino national minorities, the Hawai�ian nation, Asian, Pacific Islander, Arab and other oppressed peoples who have experienced oppression as a whole people under capitalism.
With the goal of the unity of the multinational U.S. working class on the basis of class solidarity, the new government shall eliminate white supremacy, racism and privilege as an immediate task, recognizing that this goal will not be achieved automatically or by decree. It shall be prohibited to advocate any form of racism, xenophobia or national hatred.
The new government shall institute a program of reparations for the African American community to address the centuries of unpaid slave labor and super-exploitation.
All U.S. colonies shall be granted independence, including Puerto Rico, Samoa, Guam, the Virgin Islands and the Mariana Islands. The new government shall honor all treaty obligations with Native nations, and shall provide restitution for land and resources stolen by the capitalist U.S. government.
The new government shall institute programs on the basis of proletarian internationalism to help overcome the ravages of U.S. imperialism that have exploited the people, resources and economies of other countries with an emphasis on sovereignty, solidarity, revolutionary assistance and reparations.
All U.S. workers shall have the right to speak the language of their choosing. All government services and education shall be provided with multilingual provisions.
Sexism and other forms of male chauvinism and oppression of women shall be eliminated as an immediate task, recognizing that this goal will not be achieved automatically or by decree. It shall be prohibited to advocate any form of sexism or male chauvinism.
The new government shall guarantee the right of women workers to receive the same pay, benefits and treatment as their male counterparts.
The right to contraception, birth control and abortion services shall not be restricted in any way, nor shall there be any restriction on a woman�s right to decide to have children or not. Abortion services shall be available free and on demand.
It shall be the responsibility of the new government to provide women with the right to choose to have children by providing free, high-quality pre- and post-natal health care and child care. Any caregiver shall be given access to free child care.
All forms of bigotry, discrimination or the promotion of hatred against lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender people, or against anyone on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender expression, shall be eliminated, including in marriage rights, employment, housing, adoption and health care. It shall be prohibited to advocate any form of bigotry, discrimination or hatred against LGBT people.
No law or measure shall give preference in word or in deed that favors heterosexual relationships over other relationships.
There shall be a sustained public education campaign promoting the goals of multinational working-class unity and international solidarity, the advancement of women�s rights, the promotion of respect of sexual orientation and gender expression, as well as exposing the evils of racism, sexism, anti-LGBT bigotry, xenophobia and national chauvinism. Affirmative action measures shall be instituted wherever needed to eliminate the effects of historical discrimination in education, employment, promotion, housing and other areas.

When Coates, rightly, despairs of the imagination of "progressives" to articulate real solutions - however impractical - to the ongoing horror of racism in America, these are the sort of ideas that should be under discussion.

DOCTOR ZIMBARDO fucked around with this message at 05:45 on Jan 25, 2016

# ¿ Jan 25, 2016 05:33

DOCTOR ZIMBARDO: May 8, 2006

People working for the AFL-CIO literally use the term "AFL-CIA" to refer to their Solidarity Center, which is actually quite accurate since 95% of its funding comes from USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy, two of the biggest organs of what people in international relations call "soft power".

And hell yeah it's a badass platform, guarantee representation in government, national self-determination, and freedom to all American colonies. That's a pretty good start for some anti-racist policy ideas. Oh yeah and they know the answer to "what are your thoughts on reparations?"

DOCTOR ZIMBARDO fucked around with this message at 06:13 on Jan 25, 2016

# ¿ Jan 25, 2016 06:10

DOCTOR ZIMBARDO: May 8, 2006

Well to a degree the PSL does things like that. For example, Eugene Puryear, their VP nominee, runs for DC city council on the DC Statehood-Green Party ticket. That said, why go to the enormous effort and expense of starting a political party for, scratch if there is one out there already with an ideology you agree with?

At the end of the day, any political party with more than one member has to make concessions. I guess if you want to be the next Bob Akavian and build your own cult of personality (shots fired!) you could just start something from scratch or whatever. But I guess that's not a political tradition I would agree with.

So I guess what I'm saying is: hell yea go organize your neighborhood man.

# ¿ Jan 26, 2016 04:57

DOCTOR ZIMBARDO: May 8, 2006

A socialist economy would probably produce less luxury goods and have shorter operating hours for services in general, but on the other hand everyone gets drastically more leisure time so whatever, deal with it. It's important! But it's definitely not the most important thing where all this is concerned. For that see the platform and organizing elements relating to, for instance, racial justice or anti-imperialism.

# ¿ Jan 27, 2016 17:08

DOCTOR ZIMBARDO: May 8, 2006

no obviously under socialism you can only eat triscuits and drink only room temperature tap water, all other sustenance is forbidden on pain of death. thats definitely whats being proposed and talked about.

# ¿ Jan 27, 2016 21:15

DOCTOR ZIMBARDO: May 8, 2006

Jewel Repetition posted:

*In Homer Simpson voice* Boy, leftism is good. But if I went really far to the left, it'd be even better!

- Lenin, in "Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder"

# ¿ Jan 28, 2016 01:11

DOCTOR ZIMBARDO: May 8, 2006

rudatron posted:

Why are the PSL trashing sanders? He's running on a campaign that he calls 'socialism', and he's putting the idea back into the heads of Americans that, hey, maybe the economy should serve the interests of the people, not the other way around.

Sanders is the path to Full Communism.

I don't really trash Sanders but he's absolutely not the path to communism. He's a byproduct, a symptom of the fact that the two parties don't actually address the needs of Americans. The fact that American labor aristocracy is flying apart at the seams is the simplest restatement of the reason for his (and Trump's) success.

But as more people look to the Left, it will rise the political fortunes of people like Sanders quite considerably. The key is to then move past that; as he is, Sanders if elected President would be about as effectual as Tsipiras was a year ago in Greece. Frightening to the powers that be, but unwilling to confront them directly and thus ineffective.

What's particularly interesting about Sanders is he got into the election to push Hillary a smudge to the left. Instead, Sanders was pushed to the left, and Hillary has pivoted right towards a likely victory. This does not bode well for people arguing that it is possible to change the Democratic Party from within, or that it is an effective organ for change, or that people don't want radical left-wing solutions. People want socialism but the Democratic Party cannot deliver it.

# ¿ Jan 30, 2016 17:08

DOCTOR ZIMBARDO: May 8, 2006

Pener Kropoopkin posted:

I'd still say Sanders is important, because revolutionary change will never be possible unless enough people believe that a government can deliver vital services efficiently. I don't think it can be understated how massively retarded Americans are when it comes to capitalist indoctrination.

In 1904 your average Russian peasant was a patriotic, God-fearing, Czar-loving sort. By 1917, this was no longer the case.

# ¿ Jan 30, 2016 17:13

DOCTOR ZIMBARDO: May 8, 2006

My main point was just that most Americans are going to cool off on imperialism and liberalism alike real fast as the labor aristocracy peels apart, regardless of how indoctrinated they seem now. Regardless of anyone's organizational formula or party line.

In fact that's the big thing I think we are seeing in this election cycle as the two parties and mainstream ideology are rejected by voters to a degree not seen in about a hundred years.

# ¿ Feb 1, 2016 02:33

DOCTOR ZIMBARDO: May 8, 2006

# ¿ Feb 3, 2016 14:38

DOCTOR ZIMBARDO: May 8, 2006

Majorian posted:

I'd like to see them. (sorry if you posted them earlier, I couldn't find them)

This properly belongs in the ME thread and maybe it's been discussed there, but, regarding the West's idiocy regarding Assad. As for the chemical weapons attacks, there is not enough evidence to conclusively know who conducted the attacks, but Brown Moses is an idiot (Hexamine hexamine hexamine!). I hope I haven't summoned him into this thread to spew a billion words about it, we deserve better.

Anyways to get back on track, the PSL have put out a statement on the current USAmerican election that I think is quite convincing:

quote:

Election results: chaos in capitalist parties, polarization in society
Iowa represents about 1 percent of the national population, and this year�s 16 percent turnout of eligible Iowa voters was considered high. Yet in the country�s distorted �democratic� system, states that vote early like Iowa have a far outsized influence in national politics.

Given how they are organized, the Iowa caucuses are always an oddity. This year was no different � with several Democratic precincts settling their votes with a coin toss, and many working-class voters locked out by the sheer amount of time necessary to participate. Despite the somewhat farcical aspects of the Iowa process, there are nonetheless several important takeaways.

One is that the fragmentation and division in the Republican and Democratic contests, with no clear front-runner, is likely to drag on through the majority of the nominating season.

Secondly, the various candidates continue to attract distinctive sectors of the electorate and tendencies within the ruling class. In this sense, the internal unity of both parties is being severely tested.

The ruling class generally displays a high level of class consciousness and unity, especially when in combat with poor and working people. That class of exploiters permits a certain degree of internal conflict to be expressed publicly, and utilizes the election season especially to allow social discontent to be vented safely and organized around different bourgeois trends.

This election season, however, is somewhat different, allowing highly unconventional candidates to flourish, even threatening an �extreme� electoral outcome, to quote the alarmed Wall Street Journal editorial board.

Sanders, the Democratic base and socialism

The Democratic caucus ended in essentially a tie between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.

That Sanders, a self-proclaimed socialist who has lived for decades on the fringes of the Democratic Party, could tie the Clinton machine is a huge turnaround. Sanders was down by 41 points in the first Iowa poll last year and his campaign was generally considered non-competitive.

Sanders� program is mostly a reworked version of the New Deal-Great Society liberalism that was vanquished from the Democratic Party during the 1980s and 1990s. That liberal program has represented the �soul� of Democratic Party for much of the 20th century, which is why Democratic candidates still appeal to it rhetorically while doing little to advocate for its policies.

The Clintons were the principal forces that defeated liberalism within the Democratic Party. But Sanders is proving that liberal and social-democratic policies still resonate strongly with the Democratic base. The vast majority of the Democratic electorate wants to see a country where the living standards of working people improve and that is broadly inclusive, to some degree or another, of oppressed communities.

Despite her decades of work moving the Democratic Party sharply to the right, Clinton is now using the rhetoric of the left � even implying that she won�t �just� go after Wall St. (referring to Sanders) but also the pharmaceuticals and other corporations.

Sanders advocates a capitalist reform program and probably would not call himself a socialist at all if it weren�t for the fact that it has been his political label for so long. Nonetheless, his agitation against the rigged economy and his socialist label have brought to the surface important conversations about the capitalist system itself. When the Tea Party falsely called Obama a socialist, this in fact generated curiosity about socialism and helped lift the stigma around it; Sanders� initial successes, now as a self-proclaimed socialist, are continuing this trend.

This again, speaks to why the Sanders phenomenon is, broadly speaking, a positive indicator for those who desire to replace capitalism with socialism.

For one, Sanders is, somewhat inadvertently, mainstreaming the idea of an alternative to capitalism in the most pro-capitalist country in the world. Second, he clearly is revealing there is a mass base for radical ideas. Third, his rhetoric of �political revolution� is leading to a mass of people, mostly young, arguing that the whole political establishment must be challenged and replaced to implement sweeping changes, and that the president alone cannot save them.

None of this diminishes or cancels out Sanders� pro-imperialist foreign policy, his incorrect definition of socialism, or the illusions he spreads about how change can be won. Nor has Sanders moved one bit from his pledge to funnel his campaign supporters behind Clinton � to strengthen the Democratic Party rather than an independent people�s movement � if he loses the nomination. But it would be foolish for socialists to close their eyes to the positive political lessons of Sanders� performance in the primaries.

Clinton�s tactic, by contrast, is to pander to a sort of cynicism, to suggest broad change is impossible and unrealistic. She presents herself as the pragmatist fighting for smaller policy changes that will help working people in the short term to lay the basis for more expansive change in some far-off future.

This is slick demagogy: the Walmart director, Wall Street defender, welfare cutter and war-hawk now trying to rebrand herself to appeal to the same Democratic base as Sanders.

The most clear divide between the candidates� supporters is not income but age. With the youth vote Sanders absolutely routed Clinton, gaining 84 percent of voters 18-29 (although they made up the smallest share of the electorate).

The generational gap has less to do with ideology and political vision � middle-aged Democratic voters have largely the same ideals as their younger counterparts � and more to do with the fact that older Democratic voters have had their expectations lowered by decades of right-wing assault and Democratic Party hand-wringing. Younger voters want a Democratic Party that will fight Wall Street and fight the right, not one that perpetually seeks accommodation.

Republicans: ultra-right in command

On the Republican side, the clearest takeaway from Iowa is that the ultra-right politics of the Tea Party are in full command. The so-called �moderate� third place finisher, Marco Rubio, was one of the key figures of the 2010 �Tea Party Wave� election. His entire campaign this year has been predicated on reversing the steps he took towards the �center� in his early Senate career.

The other top four vote-getters (Cruz, Trump, Carson, Paul) also share in common that they rose to prominence in the wake of the Tea Party and constitute different hues of the far-right of the GOP.

The Republican Party espouses a free-market fundamentalism aimed at maximizing profits for capitalist elites. In order to have a mass appeal it wraps its economic program � amounting to a full-scale assault on the working class � in the American flag and a set of contradictory �conservative values.� The Republicans harken back to a mythical �golden age� and lament that the U.S. has been �in decline.�

While the GOP candidates are individually more diverse than ever, their common narrative is to present the demographic and cultural changes that have taken place in the second half of the 20th century (inclusion of Blacks, women, LGBTQ people and immigrants) as the cause of the massive economic instability for previously stable and relatively privileged sections of the population. Immigration, affirmative action, women�s and LGBTQ rights, etc. are all presented this way � a sort of conspiracy between Washington elites and minorities against �traditional� America.

The top Republican candidates are the ones that are 1) doing the best at channeling this right-wing brew of bigotry and populist anger 2) have the smallest connection to the pre-Tea Party Republican Party.

Trump�s �make America great again� just boils down this whole Republican program into a pithy slogan. All throughout Europe, far-right racists and nationalists, from Marine Le Pen in France to Viktor Orban in Hungary, are using the same strategy to build semi-fascist movements still within the framework of bourgeois democracy.

Only mass social struggle can defeat the far right

Out of either fear or sheer loathing of the far right, many progressive people are looking to a Democratic Party victory to stop the far right.

To stop right-wing populism, it is important to understand how it has grown. Economic dislocation in the United States has been caused by three decades of non-stop austerity. It has been a bipartisan effort. Its aim has been to maximize profit and drive the various sectors, strata, and identities of the working class into a race to the bottom of the increasingly globalized economy.

Because this imperialist system has been constructed in real time, with various levels and types of oppression that exist in addition to class exploitation, racism is embedded into the country�s economic stratification as well as its social reality. This makes the task of uniting the working class all the more difficult, and allows the far right, in the absence of a strong and independent left, to maintain its hegemony over large sections of the white working and middle classes.

If Sanders were to win the nomination, much of the ruling class � including its so-called �moderate� elements � would unite behind a third-party candidate, like Michael Bloomberg, or the Republican candidate, even the far-right Trump or Cruz, who they currently find embarrassing and loathsome. That is how determined they are to prevent FDR-style liberalism, not to mention mildly socialist rhetoric, from becoming a powerful political current in this country again. To them, that is far more dangerous than far-right extremism.

If Clinton were to win, her connections to the political establishment and the banks are so strong that she is more likely to turn out disgruntled white people to the Republican Party than she is to inspire progressive whites and oppressed communities to turn out on her behalf. Again, Sanders is pledging to fold his progressive supporters back into her campaign, which would demobilize and demoralize the movement behind him, and hand the populist angle back to the far-right.

In short, the bourgeois electoral system cannot restrain or defeat the far right, but is likely to only facilitate its rise. The fragmented and chaotic state of both capitalist parties could lead to new political realignments and a protracted period of instability. This means preparing for sharper struggles within the capitalist class, against the far right and in defense of poor and working people.

Instead of yielding to fear and alarmism in the face of increasing polarization and instability, revolutionaries must search for new opportunities to increase the contradictions among the ruling class, to build united fronts to advance the class struggle and fight the far-right, and to expose the undemocratic capitalist system for what it really is.

This is the message of struggle that PSL members, including the presidential campaign of Gloria La Riva and Eugene Puryear, are taking into the streets, schools, workplaces and neighborhoods across the country.

They also put a funny thing out reminding everyone that Madeline Albright and Hillary Clinton have the blood of a cool million Iraqi children on their hands, if anyone wants to talk about having special places in Hell.

# ¿ Feb 9, 2016 01:46

DOCTOR ZIMBARDO: May 8, 2006

this is a thread full of only the most Serious and Realistic Thought Leaders of the generation, and the pack of imperialist running dogs who are here to Troll them

# ¿ Feb 9, 2016 22:52

DOCTOR ZIMBARDO: May 8, 2006

If th United States fell to Communism and stopped exploiting and making war in the Third World I'm not sure why widespread economic/political immigration to the United States would continue. So many migrants are already refugees or asylum-seekers.

# ¿ Feb 11, 2016 03:40

DOCTOR ZIMBARDO: May 8, 2006

Actually the point is precisely not to feel guilty for enjoying the superprofits of imperialism, or to Feel Bad about things while agitating for a bigger share of the imperialist pie. Instead the point is to act in solidarity with the workers of the world, and unite with them, rather than laughing off the suggestion that an aristocracy of labor could exist (and, even worse, concluding that even if it did it's "not my problem" -- that's literally the fast track to fascism).

# ¿ Feb 11, 2016 20:17

DOCTOR ZIMBARDO: May 8, 2006

Your analysis treats mass migration as exogenous rather than endogenous.

# ¿ Feb 11, 2016 21:15

DOCTOR ZIMBARDO: May 8, 2006

The Saurus posted:

Illegal immigrants are basically Scabs but on a national level

What difference does documentation make to whether or not an immigrant would somehow be a "scab?"

# ¿ Feb 11, 2016 22:57

DOCTOR ZIMBARDO: May 8, 2006

No. I don't.

# ¿ Feb 12, 2016 07:59

DOCTOR ZIMBARDO: May 8, 2006

goatse.cx posted:

i kinda want to sign up with these pissle dudes but tbh looking at american workers today and how reactionary/lacking in class consciousness they are its probably a better use of my time to stay home and play xcom than trying to agitate for a revolution

were you looking at them in a mirror

# ¿ Feb 12, 2016 15:14

DOCTOR ZIMBARDO: May 8, 2006

thats because it was "intelligently designed", the word was coined decades after the fact precisely to conflate the soviet and nazi regimes

DOCTOR ZIMBARDO fucked around with this message at 00:34 on Feb 13, 2016

# ¿ Feb 13, 2016 00:30

DOCTOR ZIMBARDO: May 8, 2006

Peel posted:

to get things back to the psl, i'm curious what people itt think the function of such parties is or should be. without getting all mtw i think we can agree the outlook for socialist parties in the us and europe is pretty dim right now. is the idea to just run interference and be a thorn in capital's side as much as possible until an opportunity appears or is it thought that you can build support for socialism over time through activism and organisation even without a dramatic change in material conditions? to what extent is it worthwhile to try to affect disputes inside the capitalist state?

obviously the whole premise of the state is 'gently caress bernie sanders' but there's also other domestic political situations like the flint water crisis.

Actually I'm very bullish on the prospects for explicitly Marxist political parties outside the Democratic Party. I think Sanders, and the constituency he approaches, represents much more of a threat to the Democratic Party than Cruz or Trump or their own demographic irrelevance pose to the Republicans. I would not be surprised at all if young voters began leaving the Democrats for a new political formation (whether or not Sanders wins), while the weight of the bourgeoisie found a place in a socially liberal Democrat party.

Dramatic changes to material conditions are still coming to America, whatever anyone does. The current electoral chaos is a reflection of those broader social and economic facts. All of it points to deepening contradictions and crisis. It's a good time to be a thirty-something Marxist, in my opinion.

# ¿ Feb 14, 2016 04:17

DOCTOR ZIMBARDO: May 8, 2006

Hi so since Bernie is about to hit a brick wall in SC can we change the thread title to explicitly welcome "bern out" converts? Thanks comrades.

# ¿ Feb 14, 2016 06:30

DOCTOR ZIMBARDO: May 8, 2006

Actually it's not even that, it's that the PSL doesn't deserve a second look because "some" of its membership holds wacky views about...??? Like absolutely none of this has actually been about the PSL platform or candidates or organization, just about the opinions of undefined segments of its membership regarding historical events.

For a "political discussion" its almost totally divorced from actual, you know, "politics."

DOCTOR ZIMBARDO fucked around with this message at 05:38 on Feb 15, 2016

# ¿ Feb 15, 2016 05:30

DOCTOR ZIMBARDO: May 8, 2006

Peel posted:

the question this raises is why would we expect this new formation to take the form of a socialist programme rather than a sanders- or even corbyn-esque reformist tendency. the ideological ground is there - austerity for example is excoriated by much of mainstream economics itself, including publicly prominent figures like krugman. there's also the threat that the right will be able to secure a critical mass of disaffected white support, though this is weaker just due to the demographic numbers in the united states. even if you think a keynesian programme would fail, that failure could then lead to a right-wing reaction as it would be seen as a failure of the 'left'.

how does/should the PSL anticipate avoiding either of these outcomes in favour of a radical left programme?

I can't speak much to how it will try to do that, but here are my own thoughts.

1. Even social movements that failed - I'm thinking specifically of Occupy here - even those movements were still valuable and important, and I don't think some other formation could have really taken its place, given the time and circumstances. At the same time, when it was over, there were connections and organizations and stuff that formed in its wake that were importand and had greater anti-imperialist/anti-captalist acomplishments.
2. Many of the same social forces that brough Corbyn to an astounding victory and that may do the same for Sanders, are the same social forces that feed harder and more radical leftist forms.

As for beating the right wing, it comes down to organizing, which is its own animal I can't pretend to understand. But I think we are on the verge of a historic opportunity for the Left. People have problems that can't be solved the old way so they are more willing than ever to consider previously-unthinkable alternatives. And the existence of movements like BLM present challenges that the liberal order has basically no way to resolve. Sorry its not a pat answer I guess.

# ¿ Feb 16, 2016 05:57

DOCTOR ZIMBARDO: May 8, 2006

Check it out:

its fascism.jpg

# ¿ Feb 16, 2016 22:56

DOCTOR ZIMBARDO: May 8, 2006

Beats me. It's real libertarian propaganda trying to defuse class consciousness.

# ¿ Feb 17, 2016 04:17

DOCTOR ZIMBARDO: May 8, 2006

I definitely agree that more American soldiers in Europe isn't going to do anything to solve Russian intervention in Ukrainian politics, or the problems with the Ukrainian economy that ostensibly caused Maidan in the first place. As if ordinary Ukrainians would be better off with Merkel ripping them off, rather than Putin. But more American soldiers in Europe and an emboldened NATO could bring us closer to a catastrophic third world war, so maybe I am being too hard on ol' Bernard.

# ¿ Feb 17, 2016 17:25

DOCTOR ZIMBARDO: May 8, 2006

I actually officially signed up to join the PSL today, instead of just posting about it on social media. Felt good.

# ¿ Feb 20, 2016 07:24

DOCTOR ZIMBARDO: May 8, 2006

Yasser Arafatwa posted:

I can't see how organizing outside of one of the two parties in a two-party system will be of benefit

"Well that was kinda scary when Sulla marched on Rome with his army and purged a bunch of guys and ruled Rome as Dictator, but as you can see he instituted reforms that made the senate even stronger! our system of government has lasted for over 400 years i don't see how it could end in the near future" - this argument like 2200 years ago

To be less snarky, actually, organizing outside the two parties is the only way to challenge the situation from the left, because when threatened the bourgeoisie will choose fascism to save itself from capitalism's contradictions ten times out of ten and guess what's coming to a head?

DOCTOR ZIMBARDO fucked around with this message at 06:23 on Feb 22, 2016

# ¿ Feb 22, 2016 06:21

The Something Awful Forums > Archives > Comedy Goldmine > The Goodmine > There is a spectrum haunting C-SPAM. I, on the contrary,

«‹›7 »

Aliquid posted:

Homework Explainer posted:

Jewel Repetition posted:

Jewel Repetition posted:

Yudo posted:

Jewel Repetition posted:

quote:

quote:

Jewel Repetition posted:

rudatron posted:

Pener Kropoopkin posted:

Majorian posted:

quote:

The Saurus posted:

goatse.cx posted:

Peel posted:

Peel posted:

Top City Homo posted:

Top City Homo posted:

Yasser Arafatwa posted: