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3 hours ago
- From the section Magazine
worker |
February 4, 2016 |
8:35 pm | Analysis, Economy, Karl Marx, political struggle |
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Why are Americans so angry?
Image copyright iStock Americans are generally known for having a positive outlook on life, but with the countdown for November’s presidential election now well under way, polls show voters are angry. This may explain the success of non-mainstream candidates such as Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Bernie Sanders. But what is fuelling the frustration?
A CNN/ORC poll carried out in December 2015 suggests 69% of Americans are either “very angry” or “somewhat angry” about “the way things are going” in the US.
And the same proportion – 69% – are angry because the political system “seems to only be working for the insiders with money and power, like those on Wall Street or in Washington,” according to a NBC/Wall Street Journal poll from November.
Many people are not only angry, they are angrier than they were a year ago, according to an NBC/Esquire survey last month – particularly Republicans (61%) and white people (54%) but also 42% of Democrats, 43% of Latinos and 33% of African Americans.
Candidates have sensed the mood and are adopting the rhetoric. Donald Trump, who has arguably tapped into voters’ frustration better than any other candidate, says he is “very, very angry” and will “gladly accept the mantle of anger” while rival Republican Ben Carson says he has encountered “many Americans who are discouraged and angry as they watch the American dream slipping away”.
Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders says: “I am angry and millions of Americans are angry,” while Hillary Clinton says she “understands why people get angry”.
Here are five reasons why some voters feel the American dream is in tatters.
1. Economy
“The failure of the economy to deliver real progress to middle-class and working-class Americans over the past 15 years is the most fundamental source of public anger and disaffection in the US,” says William Galston, an expert in governance studies at the Brookings Institution think tank.
Although the country may have recovered from the recession – economic output has rebounded and unemployment rates have fallen from 10% in 2009 to 5% in 2015 – Americans are still feeling the pinch in their wallets. Household incomes have, generally speaking, been stagnant for 15 years. In 2014, the median household income was $53,657, according to the US Census Bureau – compared with $57,357 in 2007 and $57,843 in 1999 (adjusted for inflation).
There is also a sense that many jobs are of lower quality and opportunity is dwindling, says Galston. “The search for explanations can very quickly degenerate into the identification of villains in American politics. On the left it is the billionaires, the banks, and Wall Street. On the right it is immigrants, other countries taking advantage of us and the international economy – they are two sides of the same political coin.”
2. Immigration
America’s demographics are changing – nearly 59 million immigrants have arrived in the US since 1965, not all of whom entered the country legally. Forty years ago, 84% of the American population was made up of non-Hispanic white people – by last year the figure was 62%, according to Pew Research. It projects this trend will continue, and by 2055 non-Hispanic white people will make up less than half the population. Pew expects them to account for only 46% of the population by 2065. By 2055, more Asians than any other ethnic group are expected to move to US.
“It’s been an era of huge demographic, racial, cultural, religious and generational change,” says Paul Taylor, author of The Next America. “While some celebrate these changes, others deplore them. Some older, whiter voters do not recognise the country they grew up in. There is a sense of alien tribes,” he says.
The US currently has 11.3 million illegal immigrants. Migrants often become a target of anger, says Roberto Suro, an immigration expert at the University of Southern California. “There is a displacement of anxiety and they become the face of larger sources of tensions, such as terrorism, jobs and dissatisfaction. We saw that very clearly when Donald Trump switched from [complaining about] Mexicans to Muslims without skipping a beat after San Bernardino,” he says, referring to the shooting in California in December that left 14 people dead.
3. Washington
Image copyright Getty Images When asked if they trust the government, 89% of Republicans and 72% of Democrats say “only sometimes” or “never”, according to Pew Research. Six out of 10 Americans think the government has too much power, a survey by Gallup suggests, while the government has been named as the top problem in the US for two years in a row – above issues such as the economy, jobs and immigration, according to the organisation.
The gridlock on Capitol Hill and the perceived impotence of elected officials has led to resentment among 20 to 30% of voters, says polling expert Karlyn Bowman, from the American Enterprise Institute. “People see politicians fighting and things not getting done – plus the responsibilities of Congress have grown significantly since the 1970s and there is simply more to criticise. People feel more distant from their government and sour on it,” she says.
William Galston thinks part of the appeal of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders is down to frustration with what some see as a failing system. “So on the right you have someone who is running as a ‘strong man’, a Berlusconi and Putin, who will get things done, and on the left you have someone who is rejecting incrementalism and calling for a political revolution,” he says.
Ted Cruz, who won the Republican caucuses in Iowa, is also running as an anti-establishment candidate. “Tonight is a victory for every American who’s watched in dismay as career politicians in Washington in both parties refuse to listen and too often fail to keep their commitments to the people,” he said on Monday night.
4. America’s place in the world
Image copyright AFP America is used to being seen as a superpower but the number of Americans that think the US “stands above all other countries in the world” went from 38% in 2012 to 28% in 2014, Pew Research suggests. Seventy percent of Americans also think the US is losing respect internationally, according to a 2013 poll by the centre.
“For a country that is used to being on top of the world, the last 15 years haven’t been great in terms of foreign policy. There’s a feeling of having been at war since 9/11 that’s never really gone away, a sense America doesn’t know what it wants and that things aren’t going our way,” says Roberto Suro. The rise of China, the failure to defeat the Taliban and the slow progress in the fight against the so-called Islamic State group has contributed to the anxiety.
Americans are also more afraid of the prospect of terrorist attacks than at any time since 9/11, according to a New York Times/CBS poll. The American reaction to the San Bernardino shooting was different to the French reaction to the Paris attacks, says Galston. “Whereas the French rallied around the government, Americans rallied against it. There is an impression that the US government is failing in its most basic obligation to keep country and people safe.”
5. Divided nation
Image copyright iStock Democrats and Republicans have become more ideologically polarised than ever. The typical (median), Republican is now more conservative in his or her core social, economic and political views than 94% of Democrats, compared with 70% in 1994, according to Pew Research. The median Democrat, meanwhile, is more liberal than 92% of Republicans, up from 64%.
The study also found that the share of Americans with a highly negative view of the opposing party has doubled, and that the animosity is so deep, many would be unhappy if a close relative married someone of a different political persuasion.
This polarisation makes reaching common ground on big issues such as immigration, healthcare and gun control more complicated. The deadlock is, in turn, angering another part of the electorate. “Despite this rise in polarisation in America, a large mass in the middle are pragmatic. They aren’t totally disengaged, they don’t want to see Washington gridlocked, but they roll their eyes at the nature of this discourse,” says Paul Taylor. This group includes a lot of young people and tends to eschew party labels. “If they voted,” he says, “they could play an important part of the election.”
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3 February 2016
- From the section US Election 2016
Though a Frenchman was the first person to describe America as “exceptional” and a Soviet, Joseph Stalin, inadvertently helped popularise the phrase “American exceptionalism” – he called it a “heresy” – the notion the United States is not just unique but superior has long been an article of national faith.
Writing in Democracy in America, which set out to explain why the American Revolution had succeeded while the French Revolution had failed, Alexis de Tocqueville observed Americans were “quite exceptional”, by which he meant different rather than better.
Over the centuries, however, the idea has taken hold here that America is liberty’s staunchest defender, democracy’s greatest exemplar and home to the usually brave – a country like no other.
That America has emerged as the leader of the free world is not regarded as some cosmic fluke.
Its global role and mission, a responsibility to spread American values around the world, was divinely sanctified and historically preordained, thanks to the genius of its founding fathers.
Jefferson’s “empire of liberty”, Roosevelt’s “arsenal of democracy”, and Reagan’s “shining city upon a hill” are variants on the same theme of American pre-eminence, a country that sought to colonise the planet with its ideas.
Image copyright AP Losing faith
Early in his presidency, Barack Obama looked set to retire the rhetoric of exceptionalism, even though many in America and around the world regarded his election, after the shocks of 9/11 and the Great Recession, as proof of its salience.
“I believe in American exceptionalism,” he told a journalist in 2009 during a visit to Strasbourg, “just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.”
Now, though, his speeches are essays in exceptionalist thinking, even if qualified with reminders about the constraints of US power and his personal preference for multilateral co-operation.
Image copyright Reuters The problem, globally, is that American exceptionalism has increasingly come to have negative connotations.
The hitch, domestically, is that Americans seem to be losing faith in the American system and American dream, hence the rise of populists like Bernie Sanders on the left and Donald Trump on the right.
Consider the face that America has recently presented to the rest of the world.
The frontrunner in the race for the Republican nomination has called for almost a quarter of the world’s population to be barred temporarily from entering the country, a nativist cry that has boosted Donald Trump’s popularity.
America’s Grand Old Party has been in a state of open civil war.
The idea of a Clinton restoration has failed to generate much enthusiasm – to many it smacks of a country going backward not forward, despite its promise of a female first.
The campaign, rather than being a beacon of democracy, has often been a viral joke.
Image copyright Getty Images Hollywood controversy
Then, look beyond the campaign trail.
Flint, Michigan, a city poisoned by its drinking water, is a story one would ordinarily expect to cover in the developing world in a failed state.
The Netflix global sensation Making a Murderer has put the US criminal justice system in the dock.
The Oregon militia stand-off has echoes of the lawless Wild West.
Before the monster blizzard closed much of the north-eastern US, Washington was brought to a standstill by an inch of snow.
Days later, the federal government remained shut down.
The Big Short, a movie about the collapse of the subprime mortgage market and the avarice of the major US investment banks, is a reminder of the excesses of Wall Street, and the fact just one person was prosecuted following the 2008 financial collapse.
Even Hollywood’s great shop window, the Academy Awards, has been mired in controversy over its “whites-only” nominations.
Image copyright Paramount Pictures via AP American exceptionalism itself has something of a Sunset Boulevard feel to it, a black comedy where a faded silent movie star believes she is still the most luminous presence on the screen.
Nor is this merely a recent phenomenon.
In the run-up to the Iraq war, American exceptionalism smacked of imperial hubris.
In the chaotic aftermath, it was more a case of decline and fall.
The National Security Agency scandal has undercut America’s claim to have a clarion voice in international diplomacy.
Post-9/11, the detention centre at Guantanamo Bay has become as much a symbol of America to many in the world as the Statue of Liberty.
Systemic problems
After the massacre of schoolchildren in Newtown, and the epidemic of mass shootings elsewhere, American exceptionalism came to be equated with unchecked gun violence.
Image copyright AP Ferguson, and a spate of other police shootings of unarmed black men, has raised questions about the fairness of policing, a problem that seems especially pronounced here.
America also has the world’s highest incarceration rate, with 4.4% of the global population but 22% of its prisoners.
Putting so many people behind bars again seems uniquely American.
Even Nasa’s space programme no longer engenders the same worldwide awe as it did in its early days, when planting the Stars and Strips in the Sea of Tranquillity offered proof of exceptionalism, even as American GIs were mired in the quagmire of Vietnam.
Image copyright NASA Many of the problems are systemic, arising from flaws in the democratic model that was supposed to offer a prototype.
Much of the gridlock in Washington stems from checks and balances that have come to be used as partisan weapons.
The constitution, an extraordinary document reflecting the brilliance of its authors, looks, to many, out of date.
In this age of mass shootings, laws are still based on a document drafted in the era of the single-shot musket.
The oddities of Campaign 2016 stem, as I argued last month, partly from the quirks and oddities of the electoral process.
Fortress America
As for spreading American values around the world, many people here simply don’t think it is worth the expenditure of blood and treasure, especially after draining wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Image copyright Getty Images Wanting America to be great again, the slogan of Donald Trump that often sparks chants of “USA, USA, USA”, is not the same as embracing exceptionalism, an implicitly interventionist creed.
The mood is more Fortress America, a bunker mentality.
Besides, there have always been Americans, especially on the left, who roll their eyes at the mere mention of exceptionalism.
For them it sounds arrogant, bullying, embarrassing.
Plainly, America can still boast pre-eminence in many realms.
It is militarily, culturally and financially dominant.
Impressive still are its powerhouse universities, its tech hubs and elite hospitals.
Image copyright Reuters However, just as striking are the symbols of regression: its decrepit schools, creaking bridges and antique airports.
Fading dream
Travelling around the country, perhaps the most striking difference from when I lived in America 10 years ago is the lack of national self-belief – a sureness, a braggadocio, that gave American exceptionalism real resonance at home.
With middle-class incomes stagnant, and with so much wealth concentrated in the hands of the much-derided “One Per Cent”, the American dream just no longer seems to ring true for many families.
Certainly, it is harder these days to find parents who believe, with absolute conviction, their children will enjoy lives of greater abundance.
Once, that truth was held to be self-evident.
Image copyright AP To many American readers, I know, this will all reek of the kind of European condescension that has doubled as commentary since the founding days of the Republic – Americans are not the only people with a sense of their superiority.
All I would say is I write as a long-time admirer: someone who at various stages of my life – as a schoolboy, as a student here, and as a young correspondent – has acted out my own version of the American Dream, at times with unblinking eyes.
While still seductive, while still thrilling, these days, I find the United States harder, as an outsider, to love.
For these are times when “Only in America” is increasingly used as a term of derision, and “American exceptionalism” sounds like an empty boast.
worker |
January 31, 2016 |
11:18 am | About the CPUSA, Analysis, Angela Davis, Bernie Sanders, class struggle, political struggle, socialism, USSR, WFTU |
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(A response to Sue Webb opinion in People’s World on January 4, 2016)
Dear Editor:
In Sue Webb’s opinion piece which appeared in the January 4, 2016 edition she implies that all that is needed in the USA is for us to change the word “capitalism” to “socialism” and everything will fall into place. Of course, this is pure fantasy, the words of a person who is satisfied with the capitalist system of greed and corporate control, what we used to refer to as the “dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.” Ms. Webb is, indeed, bourgeois and her oversimplifications show that.
Her slanders of the USSR and socialism are particularly disturbing. She writes “[socialism] – has been tainted by much of what happened in the Soviet Union and some other countries. But there’s nothing in socialism that equates to dictatorship, political repression, bureaucracy, over-centralization and commandism, and so on. Those features of Soviet society arose out of particular circumstances and personalities. But they were not “socialist.”
Ms. Webb never objected the to the USSR when, in an act of great proletarian internationalism, the Soviet Union and the socialist community of nations led an international movement to save the life of Angela Y. Davis. Now that there is no more USSR thanks to the counter-revolutionary activities of Mikhail Gorbachev and those around him that promoted the concept of socialist “markets” and private enterprise, Ms. Webb all of a sudden finds fault with the socialism of the 20th Century, calling it dictatorial, politically repressive, bureaucratic, and over-centralized, with a command style structure. And what dare I ask, was the USSR when they supported the CPUSA and its fight against racism and its political anti-monopoly program? So soon she forgets! Ms. Webb never objected when the Soviet Union supported the Cuban economy and the development of Cuba. She never objected when the USSR supported the national liberation movements in Angola, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and the Congo. All during the existence of the Soviet Union, the world witnessed the greatest fighter for world peace and socialism. Real socialism. To deny that is the worst kind of right opportunism.
As her alternative to scientifically planned economic socialism, Ms. Webb describes how we in the USA have many publicly owned electric utilities. That’s nice. We also have private utilities Sempra Energy, Pacific Gas, and Electric (PG&E), and Edison International for example, that endanger our environment and public health, cause great disasters like the natural gas explosion in San Bruno, California, the natural gas leak in the Porter Ranch neighborhood of Los Angeles, and the financial manipulation of energy prices by companies like Enron. What is the plan of the social-democrats to deal with these privately owned conglomerates in a socialist economy?
Ms. Webb says that Bernie Sanders is a democratic socialist because he rejects the idea of a planned economy. Great! So we should continue living with the chaos we live in now, where material goods are produced not for the benefit of the people, but to continue the system of private profits and exploitation at any cost? She speaks like a typical believer in American exceptionalism. As long as we have markets for goods everything will be OK. She even says it would be OK to operate private businesses that continue to exploit workers, a kind of touchy, feeley, nice capitalism!
Gus Hall, the great American Communist leader, said many times that there is no “socialist model but that there are general concepts and economic laws of socialism that cannot be ignored. When they are cast aside as Sue Webb suggests we should, the result is counter-revolution and an increase in anti-worker activity. As long as there is a bourgeois class and that class holds the levers of power, it makes no difference who is President of the United States. We have two Americas. A capitalist America, and a working class America. The class war intensifies more every day. We will never have socialism unless and until the workers themselves take power and own the means of production and write their own ticket. They don’t need a Democratic Party messiah to do that. They need a real trade union federation like the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU), another contribution to humanity from the Soviet Union and other socialist countries.
So what is socialism? In any country, in any language, socialism is the intermediary step toward a communist society. Socialism is defined as follows: “The social order which, through revolutionary action by the working class and its allies, replaces capitalism. It is “the first phase of Communist society, as it is when it has just emerged after prolonged birth pangs from capitalist society” (Marx). It is the social order in which the exploitation of man by man has ended because the toiling masses own the means of production. In contrast with the higher phase of Communist society, where “each gives according to his need,” in Socialist society “each gives according to his ability, and receives according to the amount of work performed”.
Contrast this with Democratic Socialism, *which is the general term for reformist and opportunist parties in their “theory” and practice in the Labor Movement [in sharp contrast with class conscious, anti-imperialist trade unionism of the WFTU]. Social-Democracy’s history is marked by timidity, legalism, “respectability,” capitulation to the influence of the capitalists, and consistent betrayal, of the working class.
Time to ask yourselves, which side are you on?
*Marxist Glossary, L. Harry Gould, Sydney. Australia 1948
Joe Hancock
PCUSA, Los Angeles
worker |
January 30, 2016 |
10:43 pm | class struggle, political struggle, V.I. Lenin |
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http://houstoncommunistparty.com/twenty-one-conditions-v-i-lenin/
The Twenty-one Conditions, officially the Conditions of Admission to the Communist International, refer to the conditions given by Vladimir Lenin to the adhesion of the socialists to the Third International (Comintern) created in 1919 after the 1917 October Revolution. The conditions were formally adopted by the Second Congress of the Comintern in 1920. The conditions were:
1 All propaganda and agitation must bear a really communist character and correspond to the programme and decisions of the Communist International. All the party’s press organs must be run by reliable communists who have proved their devotion to the cause of the proletariat. The dictatorship of the proletariat must not be treated simply as a current formula learnt off by heart. Propaganda for it must be carried out in such a way that its necessity is comprehensible to every simple worker, every woman worker, every soldier and peasant from the facts of their daily lives, which must be observed systematically by our press and used day by day.
The periodical and other press and all the party’s publishing institutions must be subordinated to the party leadership, regardless of whether, at any given moment, the party as a whole is legal or illegal. The publishing houses must not be allowed to abuse their independence and pursue policies that do not entirely correspond to the policies of the party.
In the columns of the press, at public meetings, in the trades unions, in the co-operatives and wherever the members of the Communist International can gain admittance. It is necessary to brand not only the bourgeoisie but also its helpers, the reformists of every shade, systematically and pitilessly.
2 Every organisation that wishes to affiliate to the Communist International must regularly and methodically remove reformists and centrists from every responsible post in the labour movement (party organisations, editorial boards, trades unions, parliamentary factions, co-operatives, local government) and replace them with tested communists, without worrying unduly about the fact that, particularly at first, ordinary workers from the masses will be replacing “experienced” opportunists.
3 In almost every country in Europe and America the class struggle is entering the phase of civil war. Under such conditions the communists can place no trust in bourgeois legality. They have the obligation of setting up a parallel organisational apparatus which, at the decisive moment, can assist the party to do its duty to the revolution. In every country where a state of siege or emergency laws deprive the communists of the opportunity of carrying on all their work legally, it is absolutely necessary to combine legal and illegal activity.
4 The duty of propagating communist ideas includes the special obligation of forceful and systematic propaganda in the army. Where this agitation is interrupted by emergency laws it must be continued illegally. Refusal to carry out such work would be tantamount to a betrayal of revolutionary duty and would be incompatible with membership of the Communist International.
5 Systematic and methodical agitation is necessary in the countryside. The working class will not be able to win if it does not have the backing of the rural proletariat and at least a part of the poorest peasants, and if it does not secure the neutrality of at least a part of the rest of the rural population through its policies. Communist work in the countryside is taking on enormous importance at the moment. It must be carried out principally with the help of revolutionary communist workers of the town and country who have connections with the countryside. To refuse to carry this work out, or to entrust it to unreliable, semi-reformist hands, is tantamount to renouncing the proletarian revolution.
6 Every party that wishes to belong to the Communist International has the obligation to unmask not only open social-patriotism but also the insincerity and hypocrisy of social-pacificism, to show the workers systematically that, without the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism, no international court of arbitration, no agreement on the limitation of armaments, no “democratic” reorganisation of the League of Nations will be able to prevent new imperialist wars.
7 The parties that wish to belong to the Communist International have the obligation of recognising the necessity of a complete break with reformism and “centrist” politics and of spreading this break among the widest possible circles of their party members. Consistent communist politics are impossible without this.
The Communist International unconditionally and categorically demands the carrying out of this break in the shortest possible time. The Communist International cannot tolerate a situation where notorious opportunists, as represented by Turati, Modigliani, Kautsky, Hilferding, Hillquit, Longuet, MacDonald, etc., have the right to pass as members of the Communist International. This could only lead to the Communist International becoming something very similar to the wreck of the Second International.
8 A particularly marked and clear attitude on the question of the colonies and oppressed nations is necessary on the part of the communist parties of those countries whose bourgeoisies are in possession of colonies and oppress other nations. Every party that wishes to belong to the Communist International has the obligation of exposing the dodges of its own imperialists in the colonies, of supporting every liberation movement in the colonies not only in words but in deeds, of demanding that their imperialist compatriots should be thrown out of the colonies, of cultivating in the hearts of the workers in their own country a truly fraternal relationship to the working population in the colonies and to the oppressed nations, and of carrying out systematic propaganda among their own country’s troops against any oppression of colonial peoples.
9 Every party that wishes to belong to the Communist International must systematically and persistently develop communist activities within the trades unions, workers and works councils, the consumer co-operatives and other mass workers’ organisations. Within these organisations it is necessary to organise communist cells which are to win the trades unions etc. for the cause of communism by incessant and persistent work. In their daily work the cells have the obligation to expose everywhere the treachery of the social patriots and the vacillations of the “centrists.” The communist cells must be completely subordinated to the party as a whole.
10 Every party belonging to the Communist International has the obligation to wage a stubborn struggle against the Amsterdam “International” of yellow trade union organisations. It must expound as forcefully as possible among trades unionists the idea of the necessity of the break with the yellow Amsterdam International. It must support the International Association of Red Trades Unions affiliated to the Communist International, at present in the process of formation, with every means at its disposal.
11 Parties that wish to belong to the Communist International have the obligation to subject the personal composition of their parliamentary factions to review, to remove all unreliable elements from them and to subordinate these factions to the party leadership, not only in words but also in deeds, by calling on every individual communist member of parliament to subordinate the whole of his activity to the interests of really revolutionary propaganda and agitation.
12 The parties belonging to the Communist International must be built on the basis of the principle of democratic centralism. In the present epoch of acute civil war the communist party will only be able to fulfil its duty if it is organised in as centralist a manner as possible, if iron discipline reigns within it and if the party centre, sustained by the confidence of the party membership, is endowed with the fullest rights and authority and the most far-reaching powers.
13 The communist parties of those countries in which the communists can carry out their work legally must from time to time undertake purges (re-registration) of the membership of their party organisations in order to cleanse the party systematically of the petty-bourgeois elements within it.
14 Every party that. wishes to belong to the Communist International has the obligation to give unconditional support to every soviet republic in its struggle against the forces of counter-revolution. The communist parties must carry out clear propaganda to prevent the transport of war material to the enemies of the soviet republics. They must also carry out legal or illegal propaganda, etc., with every means at their disposal among troops sent to stifle workers’ republics.
15 Parties that have still retained their old social democratic programmes have the obligation of changing those programmes as quickly as possible and working out a new communist programme corresponding to the particular conditions in the country and in accordance with the decisions of the Communist International.
As a rule the programme of every party belonging to the Communist International must be ratified by a regular Congress of the Communist International or by the Executive Committee. Should the Executive Committee of the Communist International reject a party’s programme, the party in question has the right of appeal to the Congress of the Communist International.
16 All decisions of the Congresses of the Communist International and decisions of its Executive Committee are binding on all parties belonging to the Communist International. The Communist International, acting under conditions of the most acute civil war, must be built in a far more centralist manner than was the case with the Second International. In the process the Communist International and its Executive Committee must, of course, in the whole of its activity, take into account the differing conditions under which the individual parties have to fight and work, and only take generally binding decisions in cases where such decisions are possible.
17 In this connection all those parties that wish to belong to the Communist International must change their names. Every party that wishes to belong to the Communist International must bear the name Communist Party of this or that country (Section of the Communist International). The question of the name is not formal, but a highly political question of great importance. The Communist International has declared war on the whole bourgeois world and on all yellow social-democratic parties. The difference between the communist parties and the old official “social-democratic” or “socialist” parties that have betrayed the banner of the working class must be clear to every simple toiler.
18 All the leading press organs of the parties in every country have the duty of printing all the important official documents of the Executive Committee of the Communist International.
19 All parties that belong to the Communist International or have submitted an application for membership have the duty of calling a special congress as soon as possible, and in no case later than four months after the Second Congress of the Communist International, in order to check all these conditions. In this connection all party centres must see that the decisions of the Second Congress are known to all their local organisations.
20 Those parties that now wish to enter the Communist International but have not yet radically altered their previous tactics must, before they join the Communist International, see to it that no less than two thirds of the central committee and of all their most important central institutions consist of comrades who even before the Second Congress of the Communist International spoke out unambiguously in public in favour of the entry of the party into the Communist International. Exceptions may be permitted with the agreement of the Executive Committee of the Communist International. The Executive Committee of the Communist International also has the right to make exceptions in relation to the representatives of the centrist tendency mentioned in paragraph 7.
21 Those party members who fundamentally reject the conditions and Theses laid down by the Communist International are to be expelled from the party.[1]
SOURCE: Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/21_Conditions
worker |
January 30, 2016 |
10:30 pm | About the CPUSA, Bernie Sanders, political struggle, socialism |
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Bernie Sanders may or may not win the Democratic presidential nomination, but he has already done something stunning: put socialism into the mainstream political debate in the United States. Sixty years after McCarthyism made socialism “un-American,” Sanders has placed it back on the American agenda. I say “back” because, as others have noted, socialism has a long history in our country, with such prominent advocates as Helen Keller and Albert Einstein.
But this resurgence should not make long-time supporters of socialism feel self-satisfied. On the contrary. Even for the most dedicated believers, socialism has been a pretty abstract concept, or one defined, stereotyped and hobbled by the experiences of Russia and the Soviet Union, many of which were harsh, even cruel (and criminal), ultimately self-destructive, and inapplicable to American society and culture. For Americans new to the idea of socialism, it’s often burdened with notions of faceless bureaucracy, one-party rule, government control of every aspect of life, stifled creativity, cheesy “socialist realism” paintings, and the like.
Now, in the Sanders era, advocates of socialism are challenged to think and talk about what socialism really is, its essential promise, how it fits the American experience, what it might look like for the U.S., and how it’s a goal every American can embrace and help make a reality.
Below I offer a few ideas.
But first, here’s what Bernie Sanders had to say about socialism.
Bernie Sanders showed how socialism makes sense for America
Sanders made a powerful case for his vision of socialism in a speech at Georgetown University on Nov. 19. In the New Deal of the 1930s, Sanders said, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt acted “against the ferocious opposition of the ruling class of his day, people he called economic royalists”:
“Roosevelt implemented a series of programs that put millions of people back to work, took them out of poverty and restored their faith in government. He redefined the relationship of the federal government to the people of our country. He combatted cynicism, fear and despair. He reinvigorated democracy. He transformed the country.
“And that is what we have to do today,” said Sanders.
Both FDR and Lyndon Johnson, who enacted Medicare and Medicaid in the 1960s, were assailed by the right wing as socialists in their day, Sanders noted.
He did not mention the enormous mass movements of the 1930s and 1960s that pushed both Roosevelt and Johnson to act. But he acknowledged it implicitly when he declared that today, “we need to develop a political movement which, once again, is prepared to take on and defeat a ruling class whose greed is destroying our nation. The billionaire class cannot have it all. Our government belongs to all of us, and not just the one percent.”
“A ruling class whose greed is destroying our nation” – Sanders didn’t say it specifically, but that is the essence and logic of capitalism. Defeating this ruling class, according to Sanders, means bringing about “a culture which, as Pope Francis reminds us, cannot just be based on the worship of money.”
Sanders cited calls by Roosevelt in 1944 and Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1960s for an economy that serves the people. In their view, he said, you cannot have freedom without economic security – as Sanders put it, “the right to a decent job at decent pay, the right to adequate food, clothing, and time off from work, the right for every business, large and small, to function in an atmosphere free from unfair competition and domination by monopolies. The right of all Americans to have a decent home and decent health care.”
Getting to that freedom means reshaping political power in our country, Sanders said, because “today in America we not only have massive wealth and income inequality, but a power structure which protects that inequality.”
“Democratic socialism, to me,” he said, “does not just mean that we must create a nation of economic and social justice. It also means that we must create a vibrant democracy based on the principle of one person one vote.”
Is this pie in the sky? Is it impractical? Is it socialism?
How socialism can transform our society to serve the people
Clearly, the connection between our economic and political structures is stronger than Sanders indicated. They are not two parallel systems. We have a political power structure that maintains, protects and preserves an economic system that fuels inequality and injustice. Our economic system based on greed drives (in many ways or in important ways) our political system. The right-wing-dominated Supreme Court’s notorious Citizens United ruling is just one illustration of the role of Big Money – Big Capital – in politics. This is why it’s called “capital”-ism.
Socialism is simply about rebuilding our society so that working people of all kinds, all colors, all languages, all faiths – the auto worker from Mississippi, the African American nurse, the computer technician in Silicon Valley, the McDonald’s worker in Florida, the teacher in Fargo, the gay family farmer and the farm laborer from Guatemala, the Korean American musician, the Irish American truck driver, the Muslim scientist, the Catholic customer service rep, the Jewish college student, the teenager trying to land a first job, and so many others – the people who make this country run – not a tiny group of super-rich corporate profiteers – are the deciders, the planners, the policymakers. The driving force is not the ruthless quest for ever-larger individual profit, as it is under our current capitalist system, but pursuit of the common good – equality, freedom from want and fear; expanding human knowledge, culture and potential; providing a chance for everyone to lead a fulfilling life on a healthy planet.
Sanders showed how socialism is rooted in American values. Socialism is about deep and wide democracy. It is not about an all-powerful central government taking over and controlling every aspect of life. It is not about nationalizing this or that or every company. But it does mean that the public will have to take on and take over a few key “evil-doers”:
Taking on Big Oil and Big Finance
* Number one on the list will probably have to be the giant energy corporations – Big Oil, the coal companies, the frackers. This section of corporate America plays a central role in the U.S. economy, but also in its politics – and it’s a dangerous and damaging one. It’s well known that these folks not only ravage our environment and worker health and safety, and hold communities hostage with the threat of job loss if they are curbed, while at the same time blocking progress on a green economy. But they also back and fund far-right policies on a whole range of issues. (It’s not just the Koch brothers.) This sector of the economy will clearly have to be restructured in the public interest.
* Number two: the giant banking and financial companies – commonly known as “Wall Street” although they are sprinkled around the country. We’ve seen how they wrecked our economy and destroyed lives and livelihoods. For what? Simple greed. They will need to be returned to their socially needed function: to protect ordinary people’s savings and to fund investment in the social good, driving a thriving economy and society: new technologies to save our planet from climate change disaster, flood protection for example; Â a 21st century public education system rich in resources to enable the next generations to flourish; expanded medical research and a national health system that serves every American with top quality, humane, state of the art care from one end of life to the other; exploration of space and our own planet to enrich human society; and so many more.
You may have a few others to add to the list of key evil-doers that will probably be on top of the list to be challenged and taken over.
But aside from that, socialism can mean a mix of:
* Worker- and community-owned co-ops.
* Companies democratically owned and run by local or state entities. This is not new: we already have, for example, more than 2,000 community-owned electric utilities, serving more than 48 million people or about 14 percent of the nation’s electricity consumers. Then there’s the state-owned Bank of North Dakota.
* Privately run companies.
* Individually owned small businesses.
For socialism to work, public expression and participation will have to be mobilized and expanded, in the economy and in all other areas of life, for example by measures like:
* Strengthening and enlarging worker-employee representation and decision-making.
* Expanding the New England town hall meeting concept.
* Implementing proportional representation and other measures to enable a wide range of views to be represented in our government at every level.
* Taking money out of political campaigns.
* Making voting easy.
Obviously there’s a lot more to think about and figure out – these are just a few suggestions.
Shedding stereotypes about socialism
Bernie Sanders and others take pains to call themselves democratic socialists. That’s because the concept of socialism – in essence, a society based on the “social” good – has been tainted by much of what happened in the Soviet Union and some other countries. But there’s nothing in socialism that equates to dictatorship, political repression, bureaucracy, over-centralization and commandism, and so on. Those features of Soviet society arose out of particular circumstances and personalities. But they were not “socialist.” As events have shown, in fact, socialism requires expanded democracy to grow and flourish.
Socialism does not mean a small group “seizing power.” It doesn’t mean radical slogans either. Red flags and images of Che or Lenin not required, nor relevant. Socialism means an energized, inspired, mobilized vast majority from all walks of life, from “red” state and “blue,” coming together to make changes, probably one step at a time.
Socialism is not a “thing” that will “happen” on one day, in one month, one year or even one decade. History shows that vast and lasting social change hasn’t happened that way. I expect it will be a process of events, small steps and some big ones – and elections will play a big and vital role – creating transformations that perhaps we won’t even recognize as “socialism.” Perhaps it will only be in hindsight that we will look back and say, “Oh yes, we’ve got something new.” And it’s not an end product. There is no “end of history.”
Karl Marx and Frederick Engels became famous for analyzing capitalism and how it exploits and oppresses the 99 percent – OK they didn’t use that term, but that’s what they were talking about. Capitalism started out as a productive and creative force, they wrote, but it contained the seeds of its own decline. It has created a massive and ever-widening working class but most of the wealth this class produces and sustains goes into the pockets of an ever-smaller group of capitalists: that’s called exploitation. It creates so many problems that eventually it will have to be replaced. Change is on the agenda.
Thank you Bernie Sanders.
You can watch Bernie Sanders’ Georgetown speech and his responses to questions from students here (about 1-1½ hours). The text of his prepared remarks is here.
P.S.: What others are saying: a sampling
Tim Egan, a columnist at the New York Times whose writing I generally admire, suggests that socialism equates to nationalizing corporations. He suggests Sanders would have nationalized General Motors rather than bail it out in 2008-2009. But socialism really isn’t about nationalizing things, as I discuss above.
The Washington Post has a quiz: “Are you a democratic socialist like Bernie Sanders?” None of the 10 quiz questions actually have to do with transforming the economy in any fundamental way.
Then there’s “Bernie Sanders, Democratic Socialist Capitalist.”
Historian Eric Foner advises: “How Bernie Sanders should talk about democratic socialism.”
Sociologist Staughton Lynd disagrees with Foner.
Political economist Gar Alperovitz has a different take in “Socialism with an American face.”
And so does Rand Paul … “There’s nothing sexy and there’s nothing cool about socialism,” he told Glenn Beck.
Meanwhile, “A high school teacher helps clarify ‘socialism’ for Donald Trump (and you!).” But he doesn’t!
If you read through these, you’ll find there’s a raft of confusion out there! As writer Jonathan Chait aptly notes about much of it: “[F]or a term so freighted with the capacity to inspire its supporters and terrorize everybody else, ‘socialism’ is oddly bereft of any specific meaning.”
On the other hand, this article does offer some more precise definitions.
I hope I’ve added something useful to the discussion.
Photo: Bernie Sanders speaking at a town meeting at the Phoenix Convention Center in Phoenix, Arizona, in July. Gage Skidmore/Flickr/CC
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