Socialism - It's Not Just For Crackpots Any More

Socialism. It's scary just to say it, ain't it?

You might think that's a Bad Thing. I mean, hasn't everybody been shying away from terms like "liberal" and "progressive" and "socialist" because we've been taught they represent frightening, evil people and anti-American values? But in fact it's a Good Thing, and the reason is simple.

We need to scare the Dems. They need to be frightened, preferably of us. They have control, and we are a negligible factor. They think they've got us buffaloed. They think we will behave because we're more afraid of Sarah Palin and we'd vote for a Dem-type Palin with less meanness and not so stupid but exactly the same priorities as Sarah and her TP GOP. They've said it out loud: They don't care what we think because we've got nowhere else to go. The only solution to that kind of arrogance is to show them we do have somewhere else to go.

My friend Thomas Nephew thinks it's time to challenge Obama directly in the primaries. He quotes Michael Lerner to the effect that "that Obama has little chance of winning reelection unless he enthusiastically embraces a populist agenda and worldview - soon. Yet there is little chance that will happen without a massive public revolt by his constituency that goes beyond rallies, snide remarks from television personalities or indignant op-eds." Lerner of course goes on with the usual twaddle about what a disaster a Republican victory would be, as if Obama hasn't been even worse than Bush in every area but speechmaking. Thomas is prepared to challenge but even he isn't sure it would work.

Lerner believes — and I agree — that a challenge could galvanize activism on the left going into the 2012 general election.  And the point need not be to sink Obama’s ship — it will be good just to board it for the general election campaign; that might mean, say, switching Vice Presidents, or getting commitments for other cabinet posts.  And of course getting commitments to reverse the disappointing policies of his first term. If none of that turns out to be possible, though, there’s a real question in my mind whether electing a Republican in Democrat’s clothing is really all that preferable to electing one the left can actually organize against.

As fetching as that bolded part sounds, I doubt it would change anything or even threaten to at this stage. The DINO's of the Third Way control the party and they've proven they only have to crack the whip to get everybody in line. They won't surrender a thing. They don't have to. They know they can control whoever is elected. They have the donor list.

No, there's no way to turn the Democrat party left when their corporate sponsors are on the right by workiong from within. The challenge has to be a threat and the threat has to come from the outside. Thomas has no problem with that except that he doesn't see a "credible" 3rd party, a common complaint. It's probably true but it misses the point.

We don't need "credible". We need scary. We need to threaten them with a party they're scared of. Do you know what would happen if even one dreaded socialist candidate won and could form a duo with Bernie Sanders? Do you know how they would shake and fumble and fume if even one socialist candidate came close to winning?

Pandemonium.

Think of yourselves as guerrilla voters, backing a loser today to get a winner tomorrow and concessions the day after. This is a war and we're losing it. We need to  start strategizing from outside. The inside is closed and the outside is all we've got left.

Comments

[Thomas Nephew]

I agree that we need scary, but we need scary we believe in, that we're willing to argue for -- it can't just be a tactic. I'm definitely willing to support a 3d party, but I'd prefer it be *less* quixotic or about as quixotic as, say, a Kucinich candidacy, not more so. Otherwise it's not really scary, I think.

I believe in some of what I see at the link you supply, but I mainly see a talk shop that seems more interested in the obscure quarrels they've had than in the vision they support. I just don't think they're scary, they're ... just different, avowedly radical, and unsurprisingly small. At this point, anyway.

Don't know how he strikes you, but I'd support Sanders, if he has a run in him. And I suppose I would whether or not he went 3d party (likelier) or as a primary challenger. Unfortunately, all of this feels pretty speculative.

Thanks for continuing this discussion; I'll link to it from my post if that doesn't happen on its own.

[mick]

we need scary we believe in, that we're willing to argue for...

No we don't. Not yet. What we need is to halt or at least slow the juggernaut of plutocratic control of our economic reality. It doesn't matter much how we do this as long as we do it before the revolution comes.

We need to stop being, however heroically, hiowever grandly, irrelevant.

a talk shop that seems more interested in the obscure quarrels they've had than in the vision they support.

Then make them come up with a vision, like, later. We don't have enough time left to be delicate about what we support.

Sanders won't run. Wish he would. He's way more credible than Dennis.

[vwclown]

Well, President Obama could surprise all his loyal followers when he announces his desire NOT to run for a second term. There will have been no attempt to find a primary challenger and the population will be caught off-guard. The President has burned so many bridges but is so self-adoring, he may just not want to face an anguished and angry public. I'm thinking we might be watching on tv another Dukakis head sticking out of a tank, a pompously detached Gore, or a dorky, duck hunting Kerry as we scramble last minute for somebody, anybody to go up against the republican. What do we do?

[mick]

Pull an LBJ? I mean, McCarthy wasn't a "credible candidate" when he started either. Well, I don't think it'll work but whatever it takes.

[liberal]

Ditch the socialism and embrace Georgism (or quasi-Georgism) instead.

While there are some things that call for socialism because of wholesale market failures (e.g. health insurance and even medical care itself), the big problem in this country isn't lack of government control/ownership of the means of production (which is the def'n of socialism), it's rather parasitic rent extraction.

George, unlike Marx, saw that capitalism is a good thing, as long as there are no rents involved (or if they're heavily taxed if they are).

Best examples of rent-prone sectors these day:
* Land (it wasn't a housing bubble, it was a land bubble)
* Finance (good chunk of which is all rent)
* So-called intellectual property

[fish]

Just bring up Nader in most lefty blogs. See how it goes.

[News Nag]

"as if Obama hasn't been even worse than Bush in every
area but speechmaking."

Embarassingly overexaggerated overplayed trite careless and reckless juvenile rhetoric and outright B.S. You're whining like a pre-teen who just discovered the huge crime that mommy and daddy don't let you do everything you want to do - IT'S NOT FAIR I HATE YOU YOU'RE NOT THE BOSS OF ME.

It's no wonder we liberal-progressive-socialistics aren't taken seriously if you're an example of one.

[Ebenezer Scrooge]

We desperately need a strong left, not least to keep some control of the Overton Window. But it has to be a left that scares the Third Way types, not the voters. The Granola Left had the voters thoroughly turned off in the 1970's and 1980's--it was Bill Clinton who broke that hold. It ain't easy to scare the Third Way without scaring voters, and it surely isn't a matter of saying things that make us feel good.

[Pope Ratzo]

This strategy worked so well for us in 1968 that it gave us Richard Nixon.

With a GOP House majority that just voted to end Medicare, I really don't think Obama is the enemy we need to be fighting right now.

Maybe before we try something of this scale, progessives should prove that we can accomplish something smaller - maybe anything smaller. If we can't get a resounding win for a Wisconsin Supreme Court justice with the extremely favorable circumstances we had a few weeks ago, I'm not sure we're going to get the outcome we want by throwing a monkey wrench into the 2012 presidential race.

[Ken MacLeod]

I see your point, but why make your link for 'Socialism' a link to a tiny sect? How many readers are likely to be thrilled by this helpful front-page helpful explanation?

From July 2009 until early March 2010, HWRS was affiliated with the International Leninist Trotskyist Fraction (IFLT or FLTI). In March 2010, HWRS, together with the Communist Workers Group of New Zealand (CWG-NZ) split with the IFLT and formed a liaison committee.

Why not, instead, link to the Socialist Party USA or the mighty, global Socialist International which even has a US section, Democratic Socialists of America? I'm not endorsing any of these, merely pointing out that they're much closer to your politics than some weird Trotskyist splinter.