Debate: From Walmart to Quantum Mechanics...

Debate: From Walmart to Quantum Mechanics, Stopping at Stations Lenin, Imperial, Reform and Revolution in Between

Available on:

http://www.livejournal.com/community/marxism/209241.html


Carl Davidson starts off, replying to DJDialectic's use of a quote from Lenin's Imperialism:

You correctly call attention to:

"It is characteristic of capitalism in general that the ownership of capital is separated from the application of capital to production, that money capital is separated from industrial or productive capital, and that the rentier who lives entirely on income obtained from money capital, is separated from the entrepreneur and from all who are directly concerned in the management of capital."

But what are the implications for strategy and tactics today for segmenting, in nonrevolutionary conditions, the capitalist class, say, between 'speculative' capital and 'productive' capital? Or, to use the more popular current terminology, 'low road' and 'high road' corporations?

Typical low-roaders, for instance, are big on plant closings, gutting industries and the race-to-the-bottom export of capital, making their profit in speculation by whipsawing the margins, similar to the 'rentiers' mentioned by Lenin. The high roaders are similar to the 'entrepreneur' mentioned above. They actually want to make or expand factories, hire and train workers, have them make products for the market, and make their profit the old-fashioned way, by exploitation, i.e., by extracting it from the surplus value produced by their workers.

This is not to say there are 'good guys' and 'bad guys' here, just different sorts of capital as described by Lenin.

Now here's the interesting question: When we, as part of the working-class and grassroots community-based movements, raise the demand for "jobs" -- either for the unemployed, underemployed or for those threatened with plant closings -- aren't we implicitly making an indirect tactical alliance with productive capital vs speculative capital? Should we make it explicit? Or should we not raise the demand for jobs? Or should we just raise a demand for income, regardless of whether the income is from an actual productive job or from a make-work, phoney job?

If we do fight for real jobs, we are definitely calling for the expansion of productive capital, whether we say so or not. If so, should we raise additional conditions to increase the organizational strength of the workers and give them some measure of control over the terms and conditions of the capital expansion? Or should we just say that's the bosses business, not ours, and instead we want socialism somewhere down the road, and making these kinds of demands will just corrupt us?

In brief, is there a valild distinction to be made between 'reformist' reforms and 'revolutionary structural' reforms in nonrevolutionary conditions, as discussed by Gramsci and later by Gorz? Is this implicit in Lenin, opposed by Lenin's analysis, or an open question not foreseen or substantively addressed by Lenin?

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Reply from DJDialectic:

First off, I copied this comment onto the livejournal discussion

(http://www.livejournal.com/community/marxism/209241.html).

Second off, though Carl writes very clearly--which I appreciate, he strikes me as someone with an ossified/dead understanding of Marxism (I would guess of the Maoist variety). To be more precise, his understanding appears to be thoroughly non-dialectical (see this post of mine for links

http://www.livejournal.com/users/djdialectic/10033.html ).

His main point is to ask about the division between productive and speculative capital, which are different--but the whole point of Lenin's book is that finance capital dominates productive capital in the imperialist epoch!
I cannot think of anything concrete that calling for an alliance of productive capital against speculative capital would mean--and truth is always concrete.

In very abstract terms, of course communists 'favor' productive capital--in the sense that we're striving to create a society based on the production of use-values. But to put it like that--like Carl does--is completely misleading, because productive capital is completely and utterly bound to finance capital.

*The rule of finance capital cannot be broken by going back to productive capital but only by going forward to the rule of the working class!* This--as can be seen partially and will be seen fully--is the point of Lenin's work Imperialism.

As far as what reforms we should call for--we should call for the best we can get. Trotsky's Transitional Program would summarize the jobs demand as: jobs for all, a full program of public works, a sliding scale of hours (divide available work among everyone), escalating scale of wages (tied to increase in prices of goods). What is most important though--and this is why it's called the transitional program--is that imperialism in its deeping economic crisis cannot solve these problems--certainly not permanently, socialist revolution is required to solve them and solve them permanently. The transitional program provides a link between the workers' consciousness in motion with the need for socialist revolution.

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Dobrovolets adds a comment, directed to DJ:

I think it's a mistake to characterize transitional demands as "the best we can get". They are "the best we can get within the continued framework of capitalist social relations". And it has to be noted that "the continued framework of capitalist social relations" is not identical to "continued capitalist state power"--capitalist social relations will survive the taking of state power by the working class, which will have to use state power as a weapon for reshaping them.

It is only episodically and exceptionally that transitional demands can be achieved under the continued rule of the capitalist class, and then only temporarily. In a certain sense, they are the program of the workers state as refracted through the prism of the capitalist-ruled present, which through commodity fetishism, ideological propaganda and proletarian misleadership is misrepresented to the mass of workers as an eternal fact. By directly connecting the workers' present necessities with the program of the future workers' state, transitional demands can, through joint struggle between revolutionaries and reformist-led workers, be used to disrupt the spell of capitalist rule. But if misused, as a substitute for the revolutionary program rather than a supplement to it, they can serve to fortify reformist (false) consciousness instead. This was the case with Ernest Mandel's interpretation of the Transitional Program as "structural reforms," which he shared with Gorz. (I'm loath to toss Gramsci into the same basket.)

To connect this back with imperialism: so long as a progressive improvement of workers' conditions is compatible with continued capitalist rule, then what is needed is not a transitional but a minimum program, a system of demands explaining what the workers' party will fight for on this side of the revolution in order to politically cohere the working class and prepare it for the seizure of power, while improving its material conditions. But the dominance of finance over productive capital in the imperialist epoch expresses the culmination of capitalism's deeper tendency to the decline of rates of profit. Where capitalism was once a progressive social system, it becomes reactionary. And so while minimum (democratic) demands are not unimportant, their former strategic role, of preparing working-class revolutionary consciousness, is increasingly taken up by transitional demands.

A final note on attribution: while the Transitional Program properly so called was written by Trotsky, the discussion of transitional demands dates at least as far back as the Fourth Congress (1922) of the Communist International.

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CarlD Replies to DJ:

Reply to DJ Dialectic:

From Carl Davidson

> DJ Quote:...though Carl writes very clearly--which I appreciate, he strikes me as someone with an ossified/dead nderstanding of Marxism (I would guess of the Maoist variety). To be more precise, his understanding appears to be thoroughly non-dialectical.<

Sorry if I stike you as 'ossified' and 'non-dialectical,' DJ. I try my best, as an admirer both of the 2nd Law of Themodynamics and Chaos Theory a la Ilya Prigogene, to stay on the cutting edge of science in the 21st Century, and I've admired dialectics going all the way back to Heraclitus and the Buddha.

I will admit, however, to a questioning of 19th century dialectics a la Hegel, Marx and Engels--mainly that it's based on the science of its day, as it only could have been, and things have progressed scientifically since then. The American pragmatists, especially Dewey and Mead, wrestled with this and developed the instrumental theory of truth as a third, 20th century option to either 19th centery idealism or materialism, coherence theory or correspondence theory, dialectical or otherwise. Yes, Mao made some contributions as well, and he and Dewey actually had some influence on each other when Dewey was in China in the early days of the Chinese student movement. So I would consider myself as one who held more to instrumental and pragmatic dialectics, as in Dewey, than the left Hegelian variety. Do you still think, in 19th Century terms, that the universe is made up of swirling chunks of 'matter'? I find that a bit 'ossified.'


> DJ: I cannot think of anything concrete that calling for an alliance of productive capital against speculative capital would mean--and truth is always concrete. ,

I put it quite concretely, I thought, i.e., the present day fight for jobs and against plant closings, etc. You reply by summing up Trotsky's transitional program (which seems to have more uses than aspirin as a cure-all) but even here, Trotsky's expanded "public works" programs would most likely be build by private firms under capitalism, which would then help these firms to grow. Hence the implicit alliance with productive capital is even imbedded in Trotsky.

> DJ: *The rule of finance capital cannot be broken by going back to productive capital but only by going forward to the rule of the working class!* This--as can be seen partially and will be seen fully--is the point of Lenin's work Imperialism. <

This 'going forward,' through the path of structural reform, in nonrevolutionary conditions, was exactly my point, although, since I'm a market socialist, I'm sure we might disagree on what, precisely, constitutes 'the rule of the working class' these days. I'm sure we've all got far beyond Stalin's notion of what it means, and perhaps Trotsky's too. And I'm also sure that, with the possible exception of a few liberatian Greens, that none of us want to go back to pre-imperialist productive captial days.

Yes, there is a difference between 'minimum program' and 'transitional program.' I'm not quite happy with either. That's what I'm trying to get discussed here in the context of Lenin, imperialism and present-day realities--I know most folks here are anti-reformist, but I'm also hope most of you aren't anti-reformist ultimatists, like, say, Daniel DeLeon. What exactly should be our approach to reform, as opposed to simply opposing reformism? That's what I'm interested in for today. Minimum programs tend to be simply oppositionist, redivide the pie programs without challenging the prerogatives of capital, while the transitional program is more agitational and nonpractical, ie, its not meant so much to be implemented as to be put out there as a means of exposing capital's limitations.

But thanks for letting me know that Ernest Mandel saw the transitional program of Trotsky from the perspective of Andre Gorz and structural reform. Mandel was one of the few Trotskyists I liked when I met him in NYC in 1968, even though I was a budding Maoist at the time, and now I have a reason to hang it on...

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DJ Back to CarlD:


Carl wrote:
"Do you still think, in 19th Century terms, that the universe is made up of swirling chunks of 'matter'? I find that a bit 'ossified.'"

DJ: That question doesn't even begin to make sense. You admit that you hold to dialectics, just not of the 19th century variety, and then accuse me of holding to 19th centurty dialectics based on nothing. This is simply a straw man argument--though a particularly insipid one.

CD: "Trotsky's expanded 'public works' programs would most likely be build by private firms under capitalism, which would then help these firms to grow. Hence the implicit alliance with productive capital is even imbedded in Trotsky."

I'll just quote what I said the first time:
"In very abstract terms, of course communists 'favor' productive capital--in the sense that we're striving to create a society based on the production of use-values. But to put it like that--like Carl does--is completely misleading, because productive capital is completely and utterly bound to finance capital." To be even more concrete, thos private firms don't constitute productive capital as segmented from financial capital--but are merely productive firms owned and controlled by finance capital. To speak of an "alliance with productive capital" is to speak in 19th century terms, if it ever made sense.

As for the rest of your comment, you seem more worried about reforms and alliances with certain segments of capital than about increasing the consciousness and organization of the working class. Dealing with "reforms" is simple--like I said, on the one hand, we fight with the workers for the best they can get, but on the other (at the same time), we fight against the reformist leadership and fight for revolutionary class consciousness and leadership (which means in the fight with the workers for certain reforms, we must tell them the truth, which is that capitalism cannot meet their needs and must be overthrown).

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From Carl Davidson

DJ, I didn't mean to ACCUSE you of holding to a 19th Century view, but since you seem to stick to the classics, I meant to ASK you a question about 'swirling chunks of matter' that, in a shorthand way, expressed some of the limitations Engels faced in Anti-Duhring and the Dialectics of Nature that resulted from the fact that quantum mechanics and E=MC2 had yet to be discovered. To do away with the shorthand, here's Engels in his book the Dialectics of Nature:

"Matter moves in an eternal cycle, completing its trajectory in a period so vast that in comparison with it our earthly year is as nothing; in a cycle in which the period of highest development, namely the period of organic life with its crowning achievement - self-consciousness, is a space just as comparatively minute in the history of life and self-consciousness; in a cycle in which every particular form of the existence of matter - be it the sun or a nebular, a particular animal or animal-species, a chemical combination or decomposition - is equally in transition; in a cycle in which nothing is eternal, except eternally changing, eternally moving matter and the laws of its movement and change. But however often and pitilessly this cycle may be accomplished in time and space, however many countless suns and earths may arise and fall, however long it may be necessary to wait until in some solar system, on some planet appear conditions suitable for organic life, however many countless beings may fall and rise before, out of their midst, develop animals with a thinking brain that find an environment that permits them to live, be it even only for a short period, we are, nevertheless, assured that matter in all its changes remains eternally one and the same, that not one of its attributes may perish, and that that same iron necessity which compels the destruction of the highest early bloom of matter - the thinking spirit - also necessitates its rebirth at some other place, at some other time."

This is generally very good, until Engels gets to the part about 'matter in all its changes remains eternally one and the same..." A bit metaphysical, don't you think? What about light? Matter or motion? A wave or a particle? Or let's set aside 'either-or,' and look at the 'both-and' solution, a photon?

Now at this point you can wrangle incessantly between coherence and correspondence theories of truth, or you could take a different route and raise the instrumentalist option, ie, what actual problem are you trying to solve with these questions. One issue might be resolved productively one way (light as a wave) while another resolved productively another way (light as a particle). In brief, instead of looking for absolute truth, look for the truths that help you operate productively in dealing with the real problems presented by life, while keeping to an 'open systems' view that always encourages you to push the envelope hiding the universe's mysteries further and further away.

In a nutshell, that's my Zen pragmatic dialectics, for want of a better term, and I was simply trying to find out, with my question, as to whether you thought modern science was mainly a further exposition on Engels, or whether there was something new under the sun of human understanding and problem solving.

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DJ back to CarlD:

Carl says: "DJ, I didn't mean to ACCUSE you of holding to a 19th Century view, but since you seem to stick to the classics"

DJ: But that just's the thing: you have no ground for assuming I "stick" to the classics.

As for changing your theories of truth because of wave-particle duality, that doesn't really make sense sense the "truth" is that matter and energy are neither wave nor particles, those are just metaphors of a sort. There are mathematical equations that predict their behavior (both kinds)--the current theory being Quantum Electrodynamics, which last I checked had been experimentally verified with to a degree of precision exceeding any other theory. Meaning the behavior of light and matter corresponds to QED's set of equations and constants.

Basing a theory of truth on conflicts at the level of appearance (wave-particular) is senseless.

CD: "whether there was something new under the sun of human understanding and problem solving."

Well just so you'll be clear, I have a decent understanding of a broad swath of modern science, have done large amounts of reading on quantum physics, and understand computers and programming extremely well. So I don't think there's been nothing new under the sun, but I do still think people would do better to read Hegel & Engels on philosophy than just about anybody else.

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CarlD back to DJ:


But let's get back to the more interesting and popular issue of reforms and reformism...

As for your other point to me -- "you seem more worried about reforms and alliances with certain segments of capital than about increasing the consciousness and organization of the working class.." Why put them in simple opposition rather than, to use the dialectical lingo, putting them forward as an interpenetration of opposites?

I admit that I'm partial to Lenin's idea of class consciousness, i.e, whereby the workers not only come to see, through struggle and revolutionary education, their own position, future and interests, but also become aware of their interrelations with all other classes and strata, precisely for the purpose of forming alliances, however temporary and wavering, to advance their socialist vision, strength and fighting capacity.

Lenin also often put forward the dialectical view that, on one hand, every reform contained a 'police snare,' but, on the other hand, the fight for reforms, especially in ebb periods, for gains that enabled the masses to secure 'strong points' for themselves , however temporary, were exceedingly important. (See his fight with the Otsovists) In brief, I'm arguing, until you convince me otherwise, that workers can best learn how to be the masters of society mainly through the process of winning reforms, dealing with all classes and strata, and discovering the limitations of reforms in the process (i.e., resisting and foiling Lenin's 'police snares'), but also by gaining vision, strength, allies, and fighting capacity in the process.

But let's make it very concrete, DJ. Say Walmart wants to come to town, and some folks oppose it while others are for it. This is an actual battle going on all over the country. Where would you stand on it? What perspective would your analysis have you put out to the masses who want to change Walmart's ways, one way or another?

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DJ Back to CarlD:

Carl wrote: "As for your other point to me -- "you seem more worried about reforms and alliances with certain segments of capital than about increasing the consciousness and organization of the working class.." Why put them in simple opposition rather than, to use the dialectical lingo, putting them forward as an interpenetration of opposites?"

Because just because two things oppose each other doesn't meant they interpenetrate each other. Believing that music is the best way to change the world and dedicating one's life to writing music is opposed to a materialist understanding of change and then one's life is opposed to fighting for revolutionary consciousness.
There may be a certain, small, sense in which the two things you refer to interpenetrate, but if so, it's only in the sense that it's completely subordinated to the fight for revolutionary consciousness.

To take the Walmart example, I would recommend reading the latest issue of Proletarian Revolution. The particular struggle against Walmart requires a classwide struggle, it requires "a political strategy for spreading and building solidarity with other workers: it has to be part of a fight for a decent living union wage for all workers; it must demand equal pay for equal work for women and men, for Black, Latino, and white." The unions must work together on this--esp. to help with organizing strikes and picket lines. Explain that a militant strike at one Walmart that shows and gets solidarity could spark other strikes across the nation, that the key for the strike's success is to be classwide.

And at the same time tell the truth to the workers: that the gains won through these battles can only be temporary, that the union bureaucracy will either fail to fight or fail to fight well, that there is a need for revolutionary leadership, etc.

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CarlD back to DJ:

Let's leave our discussion of quantum mechanics to the side for the moment. I'll agree that you've made the break with the dogmatists on this question. You may or may not see me in the same camp as you here, but that's OK...

But on the more concrete issue of Walmart and anti-reformism; the article your refer to isn't online yet, so I'll go with your summary until I can find an issue somewhere in town.

DJ Says "Walmart requires a classwide struggle, it requires "a political strategy for spreading and building solidarity with other workers:..."

The first question of strategy is 'who are our friends, who are our adversaries'? To me, that means more than just the uniting the workers. For starters, it could also mean small businesses in the area about to be crushed by Walmart. Just saying 'unite all the workers,' especially when 85% of the workers in the US don't even have the most basic organization, the trade union, doesn't help much in the current situation, does it? Do this mean your strategy is just 'class vs class?' Even Lenin said in his time 'Workers of all countries and oppressed nations of the world, unite!', which was quite broader by pulling in the masses of peasantry and other strata in the third world against imperialism.

DJ says: "It has to be part of a fight for a decent living union wage for all workers; it must demand equal pay for equal work for women and men, for Black, Latino, and white."

Of course. This is ABC of simple reformist trade unionism. But before a union wage, it helps to have a union. But even this doesn't get much beyond redistributing the profit pie, does it? That's what I meant by the minimum program, in most cases, just being 'oppositionists' and not challenging the prerogatives of capital.

DJ Says: "The unions must work together on this--esp. to help with organizing strikes and picket lines. Explain that a militant strike at one Walmart that shows and gets solidarity could spark other strikes across the nation, that the key for the strike's success is to be classwide."

Amen. Again, militant, class-struggle unionism is fine and needed. But what do you do when many of the unions concerned are too weak or too corrupt? Walmart shut down the one site in Quebec that had a union, and some of the Quebec unions and their allies are trying to do something about it. There are no Walmarts with unions here in the US. But do we wait on this battle until we change the unions into something we'd like them to be, rather than what they are? If we don't wait, what plan do we put forward just to compel Walmart to unionize, rather than, even more ambitiously, change its business plan more fundamentally?

DJ Says: "And at the same time tell the truth to the workers: that the gains won through these battles can only be temporary, that the union bureaucracy will either fail to fight or fail to fight well, that there is a need for revolutionary leadership, etc."

Of course the gains are temporary, but with your limited objectives, you have to have a plan to win them first. Everything in the universe is temporary. Tell the workers they need revolutionary leadership? That would be fine, if there was a revolutionary leadership out there of some consequence, which we know there isn't yet. But let's say you are a revolutionary leader. So far you haven't said much more than "all workers unite and fight militantly, replace leaders who won't fight, but don't count on anything until we have workers power." This is an agitational slogan, not a strategy. What's more, it's ALWAYS true, and thus does little to address the concrete, living situation. It would have gotten a few chuckles at our worker-community meetings on Walmart here, but not much more.

You're making my case, DJ. Once you dig a little deep behind the rhetoric of the revolutionary anti-reformists, there's not much there that's useful in waging an actual class struggle in the actual arena where it's going on. Some of us do have a plan for dealing with Walmart--and even it may not make it, at least right away, since Walmart is the tough case for those fighting capitalism. But I'll save that until I see your response to this.

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DJ back to CarlD:

Carl said: "You're making my case, DJ. Once you dig a little deep behind the rhetoric of the revolutionary anti-reformists, there's not much there that's useful in waging an actual class struggle in the actual arena where it's going on. Some of us do have a plan for dealing with Walmart--and even it may not make it, at least right away, since Walmart is the tough case for those fighting capitalism. But I'll save that until I see your response to this."

Let's see your reformist strategy then in this concrete case.

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CarlD back to DJ:

On the Walmart Case & Reforms:

Walmart is a low-road, bottom-feeder, crass exploiter, here and around the world, of the first order. They are the largest employer in the country, with over a million employees, and the poster child of everything wrong with American global capitalism.

The unions in the retail sector, other unions and their community and business allies should make them target number one to attack, and in that battle, Walmart competitors, i.e, unionized firms like Costco and even more forward-looking non-union firms like Whole Foods, can even be tactical allies.

The company has so far successfully resisted union attempts to organize workers at its 1,353 U.S. Wal-Mart stores. It also operates 1,713 Supercenters and 551 Sam's Clubs in the United States.

Walmart expansion has to be stopped cold until they unionize and change their business plan. We have to mobilize a broad front, first, to prevent them from entering our communities, and second, to change them or shut them down where they exist.

At the same time, what we really need is a 'Co-Mart' alternative to Walmart, where clusters of worker and consumer cooperatives can put together larger retail sites that can offer the same or better goods and services as Walmart, but in a more progressive, 'high road' fashion.

This is not pie-in-the-sky, since coop operations like these already exist in Canada, Italy and Spain, and are doing quite well. More info is at:

http://www.clcr.org

This is the site of the Center for Labor & Community Research based here in Chicago, which has produced excellent analytical work on Walmart and the alternatives to it.

Of course Costco and Whole Foods are capitalists and in business to make a profit. All businesses are. I'm sure there are probably also outrages at Whole Foods that make a good case for workers having a union there. You can probably find a few outrages at Costco, too, even with a union.

But my point is not whether it's better for workers to have unions. Of course it is.

My point is that any abuse at Whole Foods or Costco, et al, pales in comparison to Walmart, and that Walmart is where we should aim our main blow. Otherwise, if we aim most of our efforts at Walmart's smaller competitors, mainly because they're easier, while letting Walmart slide, because they're too tough, who are we really helping strategically?

What the 'Co-Mart' option does, in the places where something like it exists or can be developed, is offer an alternative development--under capitalism to be sure--but in the direction of Economic Democracy, where workers, consumers and community stakeholders increase their allied organizational strength and thus have some important measure of control and input, including but beyond simple unionism, even under capitalism.

That, to me, is what represents the best counter-hegemonic project--waging war of manuver and war of position, ala Gramsci--with Walmart, rather than just straight-up traditional unionization.

We should want to fundamentally change the business plans of these 'low-road' companies with greater and great worker control, not just win a bigger wage-benefit package for the workers while hoping for socialism to show up some day, a kind of 'waiting for lefty' who never shows up, if you're familiar with the Odets play...

Yes, all these firms need better labor standards, but cracking Walmart, the 'dragger-downer' par excellence, is the key link in getting better conditions elsewhere. Plus some real competition from the 'Co-Mart' opton, should it ever come into being...

Here's a link on applying the Spanish Mondragon Coop model to rural America:

http://www.cfra.org/resources/strategies_6.htm

But, once again, here's my broader point of debate over simple 'oppositionist' labor and community tactics vis-a-vis Walmart and others like them. They don't do so well. Many of the old-style demands wouldn't do when Walmart bogarted its way into the West Side of Chicago. We're still holding them off on the South side.

We had a broad, if somewhat unstable, coalition opposing them, including unions. But Walmart was and is more than willing to make deals. Some unionists here were willing to cave if Walmart just agreed to use union labor to put up the building, setting aside any effort to unionize the work force for later. And when community groups listed needs for local jobs or their favorite neighborhood or school projects, Walmart was all set to write the checks; they were just asking how much, and were probably willing to give lots more than some of the askers even thought possible to ask for. In that skirmish, Walmart divided the coalition and we lost a round.

This is the key for us to keep hammering away at in our educational, base-building work: Despite their 'donations' and their warm-and-fuzzy media campaign, Walmart would not budge an iota on their basic, low road business plan, which includes not only union busting, but also covert government subsides, racism, sexism, plundering third world suppliers, starving third world workers, ruining environments, destroying local communities and small business, and on and on. And on a scale larger than anything the world has ever seen!

Whole Foods or Costco, whatever their labor practices, are bit players by comparison, and on some union or sustainability issues, they are on our side of the barricades.

That's why I'm suggesting mobilizing all forces--unions, communities, local government, and rival businesses that are a bit better on some issues--to make Walmart the main target and stop them from expanding at all.

At the same time, we need to present a practical alternative of what a high road, pro-union, pro-consumer, pro-environment retail cluster would look like. With labor at the center, we could begin to mobilize the grassroots forces and to leverage the capital and allies to launch the 'Co-Mart' option.

Of course, the option is always on the table for Walmart to fundamentalally change their basic business plan. But then, in that case, they wouldn't be Walmart, would they?

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DJ back to CarlD:

"A fool can ask more questions than a wise man can answer".

I think it's proverb Lenin once used responding to a reformist.

Your goal is to create a cooperative alternative to Walmart (or get Walmart to become like that)--a high roader. Quite simply, your goal is utopian reformist nonsense. It ignores the domination of finance capital and the deepening economic crisis brought on by the falling rate of profit.

Talking abstractly of high vs. low roaders sounds clear but is misleading. Both kinds of companies are dominated by finance capital, and Walmart isn't rogue capital, it's at the vanguard of capitalism. Your goal simply can't be achieved under capitalism today--yet due to the low level of class consciousness, it seems more viable (this is partially the fallacy of misleading vividness).
Just because co-ops exist in marginal sectors of capital, doesn't mean they can expand to include more central sectors (& thereby drive the rate of profit even lower).

I think the goal should be socialist revolution. The immediate tasks are therefore to build the revolutionary party which is the central element of the fight for revolutionary class consciousness.
This may appear utopian--it is swimming against the current--but appearances can be deceiving. There are deeper forces at work and the currents can change. Those swimming against it will be swept ahead--and those that were swimming with it...won't.

Again, I'll say that Carl is a very, very clear writer--much moreso than I am. I'm sorry I'm not better able to present my views.

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CarlD back to DJ:

Let's wrap up this round, DJ.

You're in favor of militant classwide, class struggle trade unionism in fighting Walmart, for socialism now or in the near future--depending on how quickly the 'falling rate of profit' has its maximum impact in producing revolutionary conditions--as the only real solution to the problem of Walmart and capitalism generally, and for party-building as the central task in the meantime. Fair enough?

I'm in favor of a broad multiclass front against 'low road' capitalist practices in fighting Walmart, that includes both miltant unionism, community activism and a 'Co-Mart' economic democracy structural reform. I'm for market socialism, but I stress building a revolutionary organization, along with mass democratic organizations, that know how to fight, develop and grow in nonrevolutionary conditions.

If 'utopianism' is the measure we're using in distinguishing our two approaches to Walmart, I think your plan is far more 'utopian'--in the sense of how difficult it might be to win a few rounds with Walmart--than mine. But practice will settle it--we could both be off base.

I used to think, in my younger days, that the revolutionary situation was right around the corner, brought on by war, the falling rate of profit, or some other feature of the 'general crisis,' but I don't cling to that dogma anymore. But I would love to be proved wrong, since revolutionary upsurges are much better fields of struggle all around. So I've decided the wiser course is to recognize that even 'moribund' capitalism also has shown tremedous resiliance, and thus I'm preparing for what Gramsci called 'the long march through the institutions' to get to the point of radical transformation.

In any case, this has been a good thread. If you like, I'll repost it to Ben's list next week; in the meantime, I'd love to hear from any others out there...Meanwhile, there's Chapter 4 of Lenin's Imperialism coming up. Read more!

Tactics on Walmart & Whole Foods: A Debate

Debate Over Retail Sector Organizing:
Walmart and Whole Foods

From Chicago Indymedia

Up-Scale Wal-Mart Still Center
Piece of New Gay Center

by Bob Schwartz, Gay Liberation Network
11 Feb 2005

Despite union and gay community opposition, the Center board and its director, Robin Burr, forge ahead with the anti-labor Whole Foods a center piece of the extravagant project.

The up-scale Wal-Mart, Whole Foods, continues to rear its ugly head in the proposed new gay Center on Halsted.

Despite union and gay community opposition, the Center board and its director, Robin Burr, forge ahead with the anti-labor Whole Foods a center piece of the extravagant project.

Contact the Center to tell them that the plan needs to be changed to drop an anti-worker outfit as anchor tenant if the project is to have any credibility within the gay and wider community. Tell the Center that a smaller project is also required so as to not drain funds from other worthy community organizations.
__________________

WINDY CITY TIMES
Center on Halsted:
Groundbreaking in the Spring

by Andrew Davis
2005-02-09

The Center on Halsted’s ( COH’s ) new building plans are complete and the groundbreaking ceremony is expected later this spring, according to a press release by the facility.

The statement not only trumpeted the completed building plans but also mentioned that the Center has applied for demolition permits. The release also urged readers to visit the Web site ( www.centeronhalsted.org ) to look at the drawings rendered by the architectural firm Gensler.

In addition, the Center mentioned that it has hired Power Construction to erect the new energy-efficient building. According to its Web site, the Center will encompass more than 93,000 square feet, spread out over three stories. The new building, at 3640 N. Halsted, will feature a retail area [ including Whole Foods, which has sparked protests from pro-labor groups ] ; meeting and office space; performance area; multi-purpose gym; and a rooftop garden.

Comments

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Re: Up-Scale Wal-Mart Still
Center Piece of New Gay Center

by Carl Davidson

Bob, if you want to attack the retail sector, aim your fire at Walmart.

Attacks on 'Whole Foods' as an 'upscale Walmart' are off base and only tell part of the story.

It's true that they, Whole Foods, are not unionized, and should the workers there want a union, we should support them.

But you neglect to mention a few points. Whole Foods is a profit-sharing, open information firm. Everyone who works their has access to all the financial information. That's because, in addition to their base pay, each work team gets a piece of the profit each month. What's more, hiring and firing is done by the workers in the work teams themselves--the managers are only to enforce non-discriminatory guidelines on the part of the workgroups. (Don't hire just whites, etc.) Mainly, the workgroups don't like to hire or put up with slackers, since the logic of the system ups their piece of the pie if everyone works more efficiently.

Unions often have a hard time figuring where they fit in in this sort of system, which is one of the reasons their organizing campaigns haven't done so well there. They have to do some fresh thinking.

In any case, Walmart is a low-road, bottom-feeder, crass exploiter, here and around the world, of the first order. They are the largest employer in the country and the poster child of everything wrong with American global capitalism. The unions and their community and business allies should make them target number one to attack, and in that battle, unionized firms like Costco and even more forward-looking non-union firms like Whole Foods, can even be tactical allies.

What we really need is a 'Co-Mart' alternative to Walmart, where clusters of worker and consumer cooperatives can put together larger retail sites that can offer the same or better goods and services as Walmart, but in a more progressive, 'high road' fashion.

This is not pie-in-the-sky, since Coop operations like these already exist in Canada, Italy and Spain, and are doing quite well. More info is at http://www.clcr.org , the site of the Center for Labor & Community Research based here in Chicago, which has produced excellent analytical work on Walmart and the alternatives to it.

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Re: Up-Scale Wal-Mart Still
Center Piece of New Gay Center

by Observer
11 Feb 2005

Carl is right on the money. Nevertheless, people with a blatant and anachronic Marxist ideology like Bob's will still reject WholeFoods as it is a private enterprise and not a collective. You just can't teach new tricks to an old dog.

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Re: Up-Scale Wal-Mart Still
Center Piece of New Gay Center

by Plumber

Carl-

You are way off.

First: All publicly traded companies have open books. Whole Foods is a publicly traded company (I have stock)

Second: "Work Groups", as you call them, "Teams" as the company does, do NOT hire or fire. The "team Leader" or departmental manager hires, the team can then reject the new member after 30 days. This is only in the case of the very worst employee, if the manager likes him/her they just slide them into another department. As an employee of "will" WFM can fire you for ANY reason, ANY time.

As far as profit sharing one gets two bonus's regularly. A Team Bonus that is based on quarterly profit for the department and for the BEST/Most profitable is never more than $250 per quarter or $5 per day for taking on the responsibilty of profitability for the investor.

Secondly is the "Labor Bonus". This can be quite high for a while. My department (when short staffed and woefully busy) got as much as $300.00 a month, of ten dollars a day- or about a dollar an hour for taking on the responsibility of higher productivity.

Of course each year we'd have to give back some of our labor %. (A formula based on how much we sell, for foodservice we started with a 33.5% of sales, when I seperated it was down to 31.25%, wiping out all hope for a monthly labor bonus but in the most shoprt staffed and hairyed departments.)

All given the $7.00 and hour employee at WFM would still do better as a union member, with full benfits. (I payed $480 a month for the worst damned HMO possible and that was 6 years ago)

The team is just there to keep unions out. Progressives that hear the real story change their tune quickly.

Third: Unions don't fit in because those that try to unionize get fired. Managers have complete control of their feifdoms. As long as the numbers come out right you can get away with anything as a manager. The real impetus for WFM Corp. is profit. The stakeholder closest to Bob Mackey's (CEO) heart if the investor.

I can sit here typing Carl or if you like I can sit down with you and tell you stories of signs in the breakroom telling emoployees that they will be fired if they talk union on company property, of pregnant women fired just before they're eligible for maternity leave, of a team leader fired for filing an EEOC complaint.

I experienced some of the most herrendous stories myself, so if you'd like to meet just say the word, I've got your number.

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Re: Up-Scale Wal-Mart Still
Center Piece of New Gay Center

by Carl Davidson
11 Feb 2005

Reply to Plumber:

Thanks for correcting my mistake about team manager hiring, with group approval after thirty days, rather than straight up team hiring. But nothing you say really goes against my main point.

(Although I'm certain that just because I own some shares in Cisco, I am NOT allowed to inspect the books, pay scales, etc, at any given Cisco plant. I'm entitled to there is a sanitized annual report once a year.)

Nor do I disagree with the facts you present about WFM. Of course Whole Foods is capitalist and in business to make a profit. All businesses are. I'm sure there are probably additional outrages at Whole Foods than you mention that make a good case for workers having a union there. You can probably find a few outrages at Costco, too, even with a union.

But my point is not whether it's better for workers to have unions. Of course it is.

My point is that any abuse at Whole Foods or Costco, et al, pales in comparison to Walmart, and that Walmart is where we should aim our main blow. Otherwise, if we aim most of our efforts at Walmart's smaller competitors, mainly because they're easier, while letting Walmart slide, because they're too tough, who are we really helping strategically?

I also presented the 'Co-Mart' alternative that does, in the places where something like it exists, does offer alternative development--under capitalism to be sure--in the direction of Economic Democracy, where workers, consumsers and community stakeholders increase their allied organizational strength and thus have some important measure of control and input, including but beyond simple unionism, even under capitalism.

That, to me, is what represents the best counter-hegemonic project--waging war of manuver and war of position, ala Gramsci--with Walmart, rather than just straight-up traditional unionization.

We should want to fundamentally change the business plans of these companies with greater and great worker control, not just win a bigger wage-benefit package for the workers while hoping for socialism to show up day, a kind of 'waiting for lefty' who never shows up, if you're familiar with the Odets play...

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Re: Up-Scale Wal-Mart Still
Center Piece of New Gay Center

by Farlefty
11 Feb 2005

As an employee of a Whole Foods competitor, I can say that even though my store isn't union, the employees at Whole Foods are not treated particularly well. About the only good things that Whole Paycheck has going for it are some of the products, which tend to be organic and they carry some fair trade products. Is it as bad as Wal-Mart? Nope. Is it pretty shitty? Yep. The important distinction that Bob isn't making is that Whole Foods actually sells some decent shit and that it doesn't treat it's vendors like catch-cloths. Additionally, Whole Foods isn't likely to destroy local economies, although I can see how an entire town might instantly be converted to yuppiedom. There are many legitimate criticisms to make of Whole Foods and they need to be made. Comparing it to Walmart isn't quite on the money but I can think of no good reason why it shouldn't be opposed for the community center. Mr. Davidson, I'm missing what makes attack Walmart and Whole Foods mutually exclusive. They both needs better labor standards.

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Re: Up-Scale Wal-Mart Still
Center Piece of New Gay Center

by Carl Davidson
11 Feb 2005

Reply to Farlefty:

Yes, they all need better labor standards, but cracking Walmart, the dragger-downer par excellence, is the key link in getting better conditions elsewhere. Plus some real competition from the 'Co-Mart' opton, should it ever come into being...

Here's a link on applying the Spanish Mondragon Coop model to rural America:

http://www.cfra.org/resources/strategies_6.htm

Also FYI, here's the latest on Walmart from the wires, via Drudge...

WAL-MART CHIEF VOWS
TO BE 'EVERYWHERE WE ARE NOT';
SAYS EMPLOYEES DON'T NEED A UNION

Thu Feb 10 2005 21:03:25 ET

"The chief executive of WAL-MART on Friday will defended the retailer's decision to close a Canadian store after its employees voted to form a union.

"You can't take a store that is a struggling store anyway and add a bunch of people and a bunch of work rules that cause you to even be in worse shape," H. Lee Scott Jr. explains in an interview set for Friday editions of the WASHINGTON POST.

Scott says WAL-MART saw no upside to the higher labor costs and refused to cede ground to the union for the sake of being "altruistic."

"It doesn't work that way," he said.

WAL-MART'S decision has infuriated the United Food and Commercial Workers union, which was negotiating a contract for the Quebec store's 190 employees. If it had succeeded, the store would have become the only WAL-MART store in North America with a union contract.

Scott says WAL-MART'S strategy for growth is to be "everywhere we are not."

In the United States, that means edging closer to major cities, such as Los Angeles, New York and Washington, where the chain is likely to find less land, higher costs and stiffer resistance from labor unions and neighborhood activists.

Developing..."


So, break these reactionaries and everyone has a better shot of moving forward.

One final interesting point: Walmart has set up a China division that says it will recognize the China Federation of Trade Unions, and the Chinese Unionists have raised the idea of a global trade union alliance on the issue. Too many unions in the West, however, won't deal with the 'official' Chinese unions, in spite of the fact that it might be in their own best interest to do so. Worth exploring in any case...

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Opposing Wal-Mart Does not
Exclude Opposing Whole Foods

by Bob with the "blatant and anachronic Marxist ideology"
11 Feb 2005

Carl, remember a few years ago when Whole Foods refused to support the farm workers boycott? That was my first clue that WFM may be bad for workers, while employing all the correct rhetoric about "teams" and stocking expensive organic foods.

There are good reasons to oppose a WFM in the new gay center. This in no way diminishes my opposition to Wal-Mart.

The United Food and Commercial Workers along with other unions have strongly backed gay rights in Illinois and elsewhere. They oppose Whole Foods in the gay Center. Gays ought to repay their support with backing to union shops. Secondly, since most gays are workers not stock brokers, we would likely benefit from a union shop.

Workers in the Madison, Wisconsin Whole Foods Mkt tried to organize but were absolutely stonewalled by the John Mackey management. This guy has even written a book about why unions are bad for business. For that and for keeping unions out, he has been honored by the business community. One could call Mackey "blatant" in his trumpeting of boss rule.

Better pay and workplace democracy are not anachronistic. Except to the bosses bottom line and those who applaud boss rule.

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Re: Up-Scale Wal-Mart Still
Center Piece of New Gay Center

by Carl Davidson
11 Feb 2005

I'm not denying any of your points, Bob. Labor needs to organize and the gay community also has every right to shape its center as best serves its interests and those of its allies.

I'm just saying if I were going to take on a retailer/food seller, I'd put Walmart at the top of the list, and Whole Foods would be quite a few notches further down.

But, once again, here's my broader point of debate with simple 'oppositionist' labor and community tactics vis-a-vis Walmart and others like them. They don't do so well. Many of the old-style demands wouldn't do when Walmart bogarted its way into the West Side.

We had a broad, if somewhat unstable, coalition opposing them, including unions. But Walmart was and is more than willing to make deals. Some unionists were willing to cave if Walmart just agreed to use union labor to put up the building, setting aside an effort to unionize the work force for later. And when community groups listed needs for local jobs or their favorite neighborhood or school projects, Walmart was all set to write the checks; they were just asking how much, and were probably willing to give lots more than some of the askers even thought possible to ask for. In that skirmish, Walmart divided the coalition and we lost a round.

This is the key for us to keep hammering away at in our educational, base-building work: Despite their 'donations' and their warm-and-fuzzy media campaign, Walmart would not budge an iota on their basic, low road business plan, which includes not only union busting, but also covert government subsides, racism, sexism, plundering third world suppliers, starving third world workers, ruining environments, destroying local communities and small business, and on and on. And on a scale larger than anything the world has ever seen!

Whole Foods, whatever its anti-union practices, is a bit player by comparison, and on some sustainability issues, they are on our side of the barricades.

That's why I'm suggesting mobilizing all forces--unions, communities, local government, and rival businesses that are a bit better on some issues--to make Walmart the main target and stop them from expanding at all.

At the same time, we need to present a practical alternative of what a high road, pro-union, pro-consumer, pro-environment retail cluster would look like. With labor at the center, we could begin to mobilize the grassroots forces and to leverage the capital and allies to launch the 'Co-Mart' option.

Of course, the option is always on the table for Walmart to fundamentalally change their basic business plan. But then, in that case, they wouldn't be Walmart, would they?

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Re: Up-Scale Wal-Mart Still
Center Piece of New Gay Center

by Plumber

Carl -

I've got to disagree with you once again.

WFM's vision of a workplace is especially virulent. The idea that all workers should have a say in the workplace and a piece of the profit is a minimum for a future in which I would want to live.

The problem lies in what WFM is really trying to do with this vision. The vision that the worker should b responsible for profitability with out having a say in how margins raised, products are bought or merchandising is done is ridiculous. IT IS A CAPITALIST VENTURE. The worker is not there to further his/her understanding of a better future, the worker is there to spoon feed and wipe the chin of some yuppie.

A worker should not be held liable for labor productivity for a whole department, not for a dollar and hour. This causes the workers to pit themselves against the others. (I can't tell you how many times my employees would rat each other out for extra long breaks and slacking.)

Yeah Carl, I was a manager. $57,000 I made in the last year i was there. I can tell you about all kinds of meetings, I can tell you about destroying towns ala Wal-Mart (does anyone remember Oak Street Market in Evanston?? Food Co-ops in Ann Arbor, MI, St. Paul, MN and in Madison, WI.

Yeah not only do I have first hand knowledge but I have the broader picture (albeit from a few years ago).

I started out there at $6.00 and hour and lived the American Dream. I was a manager within a few yers and then filled a vacuum in the regional office. So the offer for coffee is still there, just let me know.

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Re: Up-Scale Wal-Mart Still
Center Piece of New Gay Center

by Carl Davidson

To Plumber:

Again, you make my point. Even your own story, with all its hassles and pressures, shows how you did better at Whole Foods than you probably would have with a similar effort at Walmart.

You say:

'IT IS A CAPITALIST VENTURE. The worker is not there to further his/her understanding of a better future,' Of course, I never claimed otherwise, only that their capitalist practices were different and better in some ways than than those at Walmart. Unless you're claiming they're the same or worse than Walmart, which I don't think you are.

You also say: "The worker is there to spoon feed and wipe the chin of some yuppie."

I find this curious. Since it isn't literally true, you seem to be complaining that they pressure you to make a big priority of making the customer happy by taking care of the customer's perceived needs as best as you can.

Since I run a small computer repair business of my own, I have a handful of guys working with me, and I always stress to them that I want happy customers, first through decent work, and second, by never making the customer feel stupid, even if the customer made a mistake or did something stupid. Instead, raise their understanding about caring for their machine in a friendly, noncondescending and educational way. If they don't know what I mean, I tell them to try to put themselves in the place of the customer and imagine how they would like to be treated. Is this what you mean by 'spoon feeding' and 'wiping chins'?

Although I like to think I'm practicing a little Buddhist or socialist 'right livelihood' here, it's also sound capitalism, since happy customers not only come back, they tell other people that your work was good and you treated them well, and so they bring you more customers.

It also sounds like you have a chip on your shoulder about 'yuppies' (Young Urban Professionals? I think that's the origin of the term, even if it morphed into 'Die Yuppie Scum!'). Lighten up on them. Not only did they help you earn a living for a while, they're part of the human race, too, and a significant part of the peace and environmentalist movements to boot. Like any other sector, they have a left, right and middle wing. Hell, I'd like to be one myself and could thus relax a bit about paying my bills, but I'm way past the 'young' part!!!

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Re: Up-Scale Wal-Mart Still
Center Piece of New Gay Center

by Farlefty
12 Feb 2005

Dear Mr. Davidson,

I can think of no reason why both cannot be confronted about labor conditions. I agree that a focus should probably be put on Walmart but Whole Foods, a fairly large company by now, should also be confronted. As yet, there is no Walmart in Chicago (although it's going to come to damn soon, just like me [hangs head and sighs]) so it would make sense for Chicago activists to do their local bit against other, lesser, retail wage-theives like Whole Foods. Even if Bob does have a "blatant and anachronic Marxist ideology" his objections to the WHM in the COH seems to me to be quite justified.

regards, Mr. Farlefty

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Re: Up-Scale Wal-Mart Still
Center Piece of New Gay Center

by DR
12 Feb 2005

Timely discussion. Read on

Quebec Unions Call for Wal-Mart Boycott

by Martin Croteau
Reuters

QUEBEC CITY - Unions for thousands workers in northern Quebec have urged a boycott of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. over its plans to close a store that last year became North America's first unionized Wal-Mart.

Wal-Mart Canada, the Canadian unit of the Bentonville, Arkansas company that is world's biggest retailer, plans to close its store in Jonquiere, Quebec, on May 6, laying off 190 workers.

Workers at the store, about 215 kilometers (130 miles) northeast of Quebec City, obtained union certification six months ago and were in talks with Wal-Mart on their first contract. Negotiations bogged down earlier this month, and the union turned to the Quebec government for arbitration.

Wal-Mart Canada said the application for arbitration indicated the two sides were not likely to deal a deal.

Officials for the United Food and Commercial Workers union, a branch of the Quebec Federation of Labour said they may file a complaint with the government's labor relations board and union leaders at local metals and forest products companies said they deplored Wal-Mart's decision.

The Quebec Federation of Labour is the largest union group in Quebec,

Local mayor Jean Tremblay accused Wal-Mart of being a "bad corporate citizen."

"There are labor rules that everybody follows in Quebec. Other large-surface retailers follow them as well," he said.

"I'm disappointed that Wal-Mart decided to shut down the store instead of negotiating an agreement."

The company has resisted union attempts to organize workers at its 1,353 U.S. Wal-Mart stores. It also operates 1,713 Supercenters and 551 Sam's Clubs in the United States.

Unions for other big employers in the Saguenay region also called for a boycott of the three Wal-Mart stores in the area.

"We ask you not to go there anymore. They kill jobs, small stores, they come here and have no respect for the workers," Claude Patry, president of the National Aluminum Workers Union of Arvida, told members on Wednesday, according to Radio-Canada.

"We are going into a meeting tonight, and I plan on asking our members not to buy anything at Wal-Mart," said Richard Cote, an official with the union at the Fjordcell pulp plant owned by Cascades Inc..

The 100 workers at Fjordcell have been locked out since Nov. 1 over stalled contract talks.

Quebec is North America's most heavily unionized jurisdiction, and more than 40 percent of its wage and salary workers belong to unions. That compares with an average 32 percent rate in Canada and 12.5 percent in the United States.

In January, another Wal-Mart Canada store in Saint-Hyacinthe, Quebec, won union certification and said it hoped to deliver contract proposals by mid-February.

At the time, the big retailer said it was considering all options to block the certification, including legal action against the Quebec Labour Relations Commission.

The National Union of Public and General Employees, which has 340,000 members across Canada, said on Thursday it would support efforts by the United Food and Commercial Workers union to organize workers at more than a dozen of Wal-Mart's 235 stores in Canada.

($1=$1.25 Canadian)

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Re: Up-Scale Wal-Mart Still
Center Piece of New Gay Center

by Solution
12 Feb 2005

Yeah, let's drag Wholefoods down the drain so Walmart will finally monopolize the retail sector.

Re: Up-Scale Wal-Mart Still
Center Piece of New Gay Center

by robert rabbits
12 Feb 2005

plumber, i'd like to talk to you more about the whole foods labor issue. robertrabbits (at) gmail (dot)com

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Re: Up-Scale Wal-Mart Still
Center Piece of New Gay Center

by DR
13 Feb 2005

Interested in Whole Food's track record in recognizing the right to union representation and collective bargaining for their employees? A glimpse at these story links from Madison IMC might be instructive. Read on.

Whole Foods Workers and Supporters Picket for Union Recognition - Madison IMC

and visit Whole Food Workers Unite at:

http://www.wholeworkersunite.org/ Read more!

Debate over Obama, Rice & Hardball vs, Dems

Barak Votes for Condi, Confirms Status As Liberal Sell-Out

by Revolted but unsurprised 27 Jan 2005

Yup, that's right. Barak Obama, the darling of the liberal set, voted with the Republocrats in confirming Condi Rice as the new ambassador of U.S. imperialism.

For what it's worth, Illinois' 'senior' senator Dick Durbin voted against this venal shithead's appointment. What's wrong with this picture? Everything. What's surprising? Nothing, since in his first official senate vote, Obama voted to certify the November 2 electoral college votes -- including in Ohio, New Mexico and Florida, where massive irregularities are increasingly being cited as having wrongly tipped those states to Bush.

Even 'opposition' pro-war candidate Kerry mustered the spine to vote against Condi ... but not Barak. Wonder if he'll continue his pattern of craven administration support by putting meat on his pre-election bone of contention with Iran, when he asserted in a television interview that he had no problem with a 'pre-emptive strike' against same. He sure as hell is not building a track record that suggests that he'll be anything but a Democratic Leadership Council stooge.



Comments Re: Barak Votes for Condi, Confirms Status As Liberal Sell-Out

by marat 27 Jan 2005

Well, it looks like many of the "peace voter" types who lined up uncritically behind Obama as the best hope for the future have been taken to the cleaners once again -- this time by a slick political huckster with long range ambitions, renewed ties to the Democratic Leadership Council and few scruples -- particuarly when it comes to bamboozling local progressives.

Most Chicagoans generally expect to wade knee deep through the manure spread by aspiring politicians on the make in an election year. But that's a far cry from actually buying the campaign hype. PT Barnum was right.

With the full Senate confirmation vote on Alberto 'Torture's Okay Dokey By Me" Gonzales as Attorney-General looming next week, maybe it's time to take up a public collection to help Senator Obama buy a spine.

Re: Barak Votes for Condi, Confirms Status As Liberal Sell-Out

by Carl Davidson

Are we shocked that Obama is a liberal? He hasn't sold out to the liberals, he's been one all along, and you'll noticed that liberals divided and waffled on the Condi vote, as they do on a good number of things. That's why they're liberals.

There is one point that needs to be made, though. How would it look to his core base for the only Black man in the Senate to vote against the first Black woman to be Secretary of State? It might be easy for while radicals or even a few white liberals, but politicians, first and foremost, know how to count...

Re: Barak Votes for Condi, Confirms Status As Liberal Sell-Out by argh!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Jesus Christ Carl Davidson...What does it take for you to give up your irritating and annoying boot licking and excuse making for the Democratic Party. Enough!!! What's next your apologies for why Jan urged the schoolboard ahead with turning Senn into a military outpost...rationaliing Obama saber rattling directed at Iran...raationalizing Hillary Clinton's speech this week about reaching out to Pro Lifers...enough from the likes of you. Your shilling for the Dems is pathetic. and clearly you have learned nothing from this past election. Stop making excuses and start building the fucking movement

Re: Barak Votes for Condi, Confirms Status As Liberal Sell-Out

by assdfg

27 Jan 2005 i am a black man and i am pissed that he voted for condi. get over your paternalistic bullshit with black people carl.

Re: Barak Votes for Condi, Confirms Status As Liberal Sell-Out

by Carl Davidson

27 Jan 2005 I'm glad Senators voted NO on Rice as a repudiation of the war, and I urged Obama to do so, too. And likewise urged Schkowsky to oppose the Naval academy at Senn. I'm just say you have to analyze things a bit in context. Your allies don't always do your exact bidding; that's why they're allies of your camp, and not part of your camp itself. That's why we maintain our independence, and criticize and pressure them as needed. Sometimes you win, sometimes you don't. But I still would have voted for Obama, if for no other reason than to put a dent in the lily-white Senate. Call it patronizing or anything you want, but it was better than voting for Keyes or not voting at all.

Re: Barak Votes for Condi, Confirms Status As Liberal Sell-Out

by Egads 27 Jan 2005

I am baffled. By Carl's logic, Blacks should vote for Blacks, women should vote for women, Latinos should vote for Latinos, GLBT people should vote for out queers (or maybe closeted ones, for that matter)... and maybe Germans should vote for Germans, Serbs should vote for Serbs, and the Romani should vote for nobody, because they never have candidates. Maybe Asians in the U.S. shouldn't vote either, since not too many Asians run for electged office, although there was a South Asian fellow who ran for the Republican slot in the governor's race, on an unbelievably reactionary economic platform that included the usual short shrift for immigrants. Should Asians have voted for that guy, or only South Asians?

By this logic, Barak Obama should never have run against Bobby Rush for congress. Come to think of it, he shouldn't have run against Rush anyway, since Rush remains far less odious as an elected official than Obama in his short tenure in the Senate.

Come on, Carl. Since when have we jumped on the 'tokenism' bandwagon in abeyance of all of our political principles? Oh, wait. I forgot. The regime currently in power has been masterful at tokenism, seeking always to appoint cabinet loyalists who don't look like pink people, but back policies that are embued with the most pernicious characteristics of white supremacy.

My friend, it's ok to admit that you mistyped and want to retract the atrocious suggestion that Obama just couldn't bring himself to vote against a Black woman -- despite the fact that that willing token fuckhead clearly has complete contempt for the core interests of Blacks and just about everybody else on this planet.

The core assumption in an assertion like that is that Black people are dumbasses, too stupid to distinguish between a vote against a Black woman and a vote against a person who happens to be Black and female who stands against the interests of both of those constituencies.

What a great fucking way to encourage people of color to renew their alliegance to the Democratic Party...not.

What the fuck.


Re: Barak Votes for Condi, Confirms Status As Liberal Sell-Out

by curious

Just curious Carl. Exactly what would it take for you to stop pandering to the Dems--"liberal" wing and all??? What have your liberals done to show they are our "allies". This ally business, as far as you are concerned, seems to be a one way street. You make all the excuses and they give us nothing in return. Your liberal friends in the Dems have sold us out on gay marriage, on ending the occupation, on abortion rights. No betrayal from your liberal Dems seems too much for you. Do you have a line that you draw when you stop supporting the other war party. Just curious.

Re: Barak Votes for Condi, Confirms Status As Liberal Sell-Out

by two questions

hmmmm. you counseled Obama to vote against Condi. You counseled JAn to vote against the Navy at Senn. Looks like you are losing your influence around town. And how exactly are you planning on "pressuring" Obama and Jan??? You have exposed yourself repeatedly in this last election that you don't really have any standards and that you'll vote for a democrat before you do anything else. So how are you going to pressure them when on softball issues, ie vote against the war monger who told us that if we didn't go iinto Iraq there would be muchroom clouds; and isolate the liberal who says she's against the war but wants Senn to be turned into a navel academy????What are you not going to vote or stump for them. Fogive us if we don't beleive you.

Re: Barak Votes for Condi, Confirms Status As Liberal Sell-Out

by J.27 Jan 2005

I don't know, Carl. I mean, as a leading African-American, the impact of him voting against Rice would have been tremendous. Bush, to a certain extent, is engaging in the worst sort of tokenism with Rice (much worse with Gonzales.) Obama was uniquely situated to vote against Rice.

It wouldn't have hurt him with his base in the African-American community. They know the difference between someone who shares their concerns, and someone who merely shares their skin color. And Obama's vote against Rice would have given cover to some of the white politicians who voeted for Rice because they didn't want to be seen as opposing the advancement of an African-American.

Sadly, I think Obama's vote here is better understood as an effort to broaden his base, beyond what he gets in Illinois. It's sort of like Kerry's vote for the war -- he figured that was the safe thing to do if he wanted to run for President. Obama's aiming for higher office, and is willing to move to the center to do it. It would have cost him little to vote against her, and it would have done a lot.

Another good progressive sacrificing what he believes in for personal advancement. It happens all too often.

Don't get me wrong. I'll almost certainly vote again for Obama again, whatever he runs for. But this is a disappointment, and bad sign for his future as a progressive.

There was no good reason for Obama to vote for Rice.



Obama and Condi
by marat


Sorry, Carl but it won't wash. Folks in the African American and Latino communities recognize the Bush ploy with Rice and Gonzales for what it is - a transparent attempt at tokenism that is fundamentally racist to the core.

As for Rice, check out the latest edition of the Black Commentator at: http://www.blackcommentator.com/ for their take on her appointment.

BTW, the BC was the publication that first outed Obama for his membership in the Democratic Leadership Council.

Re: Barak Votes for Condi, Confirms Status As Liberal Sell-Out

by Egads 27 Jan 2005

You know, unlike some of my anarchist purist friends, I am not catagorically opposed to playing in the electoral sector. I am, however, catagorically opposed to allowing misguided souls with a painfully long learning curve like Carl Davidson to play in same.

Why? Because folks like Carl just don't get it. Obama didn't vote for Condi in order to pander to sentiments in the Black community, except perhaps for the rare conservative wingnut like paid Bush apologist Armstrong Williams. Those pro-Condi sentiments don't exist in the community. No, to understand why Obama has set himself on this voting trajectory, you need to do one thing: follow the money...and by default, plot his political ambitions for higher office.

Obama has no compunction about going against Black politicians -- including relatively progressive Black politicians like Bobby Rush. That was a great scenario for the up-and-comer. Do da mare a favor by punishing the candidate who had the audacity to challenge his hold on the kingdom of Chicago, and cut a bunch of side-bar deals to grease the wheel for mayoral support in Springfield and points beyond.

Obama is in many ways no different than another 'liberal' sell-out, Carol Mosely Braun, who as a one-term loser, by the way, ultimately paved the way for Obama’s rise through the ranks. And he's looking to secure his current AND potential donor base, largely from the class of corporate heavies that tend to back Democratic Leadership Council candidates and don't think an expanded empire in the Middle East is necessarily a bad idea.

The problem with all of this, of course, is that delusional 'thinkers' like Carl believe that eager stooges like Obama may occasionally throw the rest of us a bone. Not lately, and increasingly on the crucial issues, not ever if you look at the voting trajectory of the vast majority of Senate Democrats.

My father, a hardline New Deal Democrat, used to have a saying. How do you tell a Democrat from a Republican? The Democrats will occasionally throw you a bone, while the Republicans will pick your bones. Sadly, increasingly, that's not even true, as corporate Democrats chase their corporate Republican comrades down the path to the corporate trough.

At the same time, misguided apologists like Carl continue to believe that somehow, somewhere, we are not playing a zero sum gain game. Carl believes that we can sway the Democratic Party and Democratic politicians by directing mass opinion â€" and voter support â€" their way. But Democratic politicians know that, in the end, 'we'll' vote for them because ‘we’ have no choice. It's like tic-tac-toe. The only winning move is not to play that game.

Instead, if we MUST play in the electoral sector as one strategy amongst MANY, we should be boosting grassroots candidates who see a bid for office as a chance to shake things up on behalf of a base to whom they’re accountable, instead of running as a career move. Increasingly, that means backing truly independent candidates, because this inside/outside strategy is doomed to fail. Look at the changes in the core dynamics of the Democratic Party, for pity's sake. The left HAS no option in the Democratic Party, or hadn't you noticed, Carl. Instead, we should be running truly insurgent campaigns designed to hurt the people that hurt us -- and that means the fucking Democratic Party infrastructure, which has in the last three decades shut us out of even a minority voice in its conventions, and increasingly marginalized and taken for granted its base constituencies in its quest to out-corporate the Republicans.

Elected office has always been a career and a springboard for even higher office for Obama. He's never been the people's man, and his voting record to date in the Senate, as abbreviated as it is, underscores that. There ARE a few alternatives that remain in the DP, but very few. A notable example is Cynthia McKinney, who ran an insurgent grassroots campaign to seize back her congressional seat -- as much from the Democratic Party operatives who sold her out as from the Republican who defeated her two years ago.

Over the longer term, however, we need a new party and a party with a platform and some fucking principles. And we really, really, really need to refuse to allow naive player wannabee's like Carl to misdirect our energies into the electoral sector bait-and-switch, and instead ratchet up resistance through street actions, boycotts, LOCAL electoral work against Republicrats like King Daley, and increasingly aggressive popular campaigns against those who would step up our growing disenfranchisement. Not every campaign is an ˜electoral campaign. Where might we be if thousands of local activists hadn't followed the liberals' appeal to peel back from public protest and instead focus on a presidential and congressional election -- within a larger strategic framework that was doomed to fail? At least our fucking movement would be stronger. Instead, playing the loser electoral game has simply weakened, misdirected and undercut what had been a burgeoning anti-war movement that increasingly drew core connections between our misadventures in Iraq and the larger imperial agenda of the plutocrats who back the Bush regime.

Re: Barak Votes for Condi, Confirms Status As Liberal Sell-Out

By Carl Davidson 27 Jan 2005

My goodness, my little point about why Obama might have voted for Condi Rice seems to have stirred up a hornet's nest. Why not just ask the man his reasons?

But what disturbs me--maybe I'm just old fashioned--is the pure venom that's spewed by white radicals against Black liberals in these discussions.

One of the things I learned from Lenin in studying the "national question" back in the 1960s during the Black Revolt was that the beginning of wisdom was to make a distinction between oppressor and oppressed nationaties--and that there was a "division of labor" between the radicals of the oppressor ( read white) nation and those of the oppressed (read Black) nation. The white radicals were to aim their main fire at their own "white chauvinists." If they did a good job at this, it made it easier for the Black radicals to take on the opportunists or backward nationalists in their own community in a way that helped multinational unity.

Lenin especially warned that for the radicals of the dominant nationality to make it their business to attack non-radical or opportunist elements in the oppressed community, whatever their class standing, was not only ineffective, but made matters worse, not only for the Black radicals, since coming from the whites, it would be seen by many in the oppressed community as chauvinism with a left veneer, even if well intentioned. Multinational unity would be undercut.

Does this mean that Condi shouldn't be taken on? Of course not. Only that as whites, we have to have some sensitive restraint in how we put things. But more important, the better job we do taking on Bush and his neocon cabal, the more effective it is for folks like the Black Commentator to take on Condi and others like her with tough polemics within the Black community.

And whoever thinks Condi has no sympathy in the Black community better go and talk to some people. I teach computer literacy to CHA residents, all Black working class folks 30-50 years old. I took a straw poll one day. Out of a class of 10, 8 women strongly admiring and supporting Condi, one guy undecided and one guy against--and they were all opposed to the war.

Inconsistent? Yes, but the point, especially for WHITE radicals, is to be sensitive to these things, especially when the dominant order is white supremacy, white monopolies and white exclusiveness. Remember your part in the "division of labor."

That why I cringe whenever I hear WHITE radicals running off at the mouth about Uncle Tom here or Aunt Jemima there, or even worse language, about Black leaders.

It has nothing to do with the Democratic Party (which I would like to replace as much as anyone) but everything to do with right and wrong on "the national question."

It's an old lesson, but sometimes new generations unfortunately have to learn it all over again.

Re: Barak Votes for Condi, Confirms Status As Liberal Sell-Out

By marat

From Davidson's last post, it's apparent he didn't bother to actually read what the Black Commentator had to say about Condi Rice.

It figures. Why would he? After all, it's simply much easier to retreat into a discussion of the classics - Lenin on the national question - than actually have to react to what real live Black progressives are saying about Condi's absymal role in the Bush Administration. And much less problematic as well...since their views don't exactly jibe with his paternalistic view of what the Black community actually thinks. So given a choice between BC's insightful commentary and analysis and Carl's pithy observations about opinion in the African American community - formulated from a position of relative privilege - a white instructor polling his students - sorry folks, but I'll take the Black Commentator hands down.

Still, Davidson's point about taking on white chauvinism in the progressive movement is on target. White radicals do have a responsiblity to confront this head on. And one of the first things they need to do is listen to what progressive voices from oppressed communities are actually saying. Would that Davidson take his own advice.

Here's one place to start:
http://www.blackcommentator.com/123/123_cover_rice.html

Re: Barak Votes for Condi, Confirms Status As Liberal Sell-Out

by egads 28 Jan 2005

Unbelievable. One shouldn't criticize Obama and his already deplorable senate voting record if one is white -- that's effectively what Carl Davidson is saying. And he backs this up with his 'vox populi' straw poll of students in his class, Blacks who Carl says deeply admire Condi.

Huh. Sorry, but in my own informal straw polls, I've never met a Black person who supports Condi's politics or political allegiences. That's very different than asking people if they 'admire' her for getting ahead in a nation that is racist to the core.

If we extend Carl's logic, poor Clarence Thomas really did get the shaft for being called out on his sexism, even if it was a Black woman who called him out, because, dammit, whites can't criticize that particular Black man's politics either.

I have to say that I don't think I've ever seen such a cynical exploitation by a white man -- Carl Davidson -- of the race card on this newswire. All this so Carl can continue to try to mount some defense of his pal Obama. Carl, let me ask you -- just when is Obama going to take a vote that's not about screwing the rest of us, Black, white, Latino, men, women, children? And while we're at it, how about the call in an earlier comment to take on local republicrats like Daley? Where do you stand on that, buddy? Or is that grooving a little too close to a local gravy train for you?

Re: Barak Votes for Condi, Confirms Status As Liberal Sell-Out

by bac ho 28 Jan 2005

Another telling benchmark will be Barak's vote during the full Senate confirmation session on Alberto "Torture Boy" Gonzales as Attorney-General next week.

The leading Latino civil liberties organization MALDEF has openly condemned this nomination, along with the NAACP, the full Black Congressional Caucus, the ACLU, Human Rights Watch and other human rights groups. Will Obama stand with these groups -- and his own Latino constituents -- or vote with the Senate Republican majority?

Anybody wanna lay odds?

Re: Barak Votes for Condi, Confirms Status As Liberal Sell-Out

By Carl Davidson
28 Jan 2005

I guess I have to repeat things several times before they get through here. I wonder why.

1. I support those who voted against Condi Rice and the war in her Senate confirmation. I wish the whole damn Senate voted against her, including Obama.

2. I'm for criticizing any and all politicians of whatever nationality, except that when whites take on minority politicians, they have to be sensitive to white exclusiveness and privilege in how they put things, and that their main task is to take on white opportunists or white adversaries. If you think that's paternalism, I plead guilty.

3 I will and have supported any decent canditate against Daley. It seems Jesse Jr is getting a challenge together. Are you guys on board, or is he to much of a sellout liberal for you?

4. I have no illusions about reforming the Democratic party; it has to be replaced with a real progressive electoral alliance, but in a way that weakens rather than strengthens the far right at the same time. I also believe in not voting or 'lesser evil' voting from time to time; I never voted for Clinton, but did vote for Kerry over Bush. If that makes me a shill for the Democrats, then I also plead guilty.

5. I read every issue of the Black Commentator and have posted their stuff to our web site, solidarityeconomy.net in past 'articles of the month.' It's a fine publication with view much in tune with my own. I suggest you read their stuff on Dan Swinney's work and see if you're in tune.

6. There are a good number of DSA types or reform Democrats who do have the politics you are attacking. If you want to do polemics with that line, why not do it with them? If you want to do polemics with me, I've got plenty of documents out there that actually state my real views, why not take them on instead of playing 'gotcha' with straw men? Doing so reveals your weaknesses more than mine to anyone who really bothers to think about it...

7. Finally, I think the politics of the Black community are a lot more complicated than any of us think. I present some counter examples to some of the more outrageous claims that seems to think they're all in tune with the far left. I'm neither in a position, nor have the ability or desire to try to represent the views of the Black community as a whole. I'm just urging radicals to actually talk with a wider variety of people in their actual diversity so our own views aren't based on wishful thinking.

Re: Barak Votes for Condi, Confirms Status As Liberal Sell-Out

by marat

OK, Carl, what did you think about the BC editorial, now that we've received public assurances that you've actually read it? You might consider forwarding it on to Barak as well.

While we're on the subject of white activists relating supportively to the black liberation movement, let me point out that one of BC's gifted writers is Chicago's own Bruce Dixon - former Black Panther Party member and community housing organizer, with literally decades of experience working in the Chicago electoral arena - including Harold's campaign. It was Dixon - who currently lives in Georgia - who researched the expose that first revealed Obama's ties to the DLC, and forced the candidate to fess up contritely in a public letter to the BC and their readers.

Dixon's BC article was also republished here on Chicago Indymedia, which BC editors gave a nice heads up to -- praise indeed coming from such a great publication.

Re: Barak Votes for Condi, Confirms Status As Liberal Sell-Out

by clarifying the record

Carl, this debate erupted because you suggested that Obama may not have wanted to go on record as a Black man voting against the appointment of a Black woman, suggesting that to do so might have alienated his base in the Black community.

Specifically, you said: "How would it look to his core base for the only Black man in the Senate to vote against the first Black woman to be Secretary of State? It might be easy for while radicals or even a few white liberals, but politicians, first and foremost, know how to count..."

Well, increasingly, politicians don't need to count. Recall the sweeping strategy of voter suppression in states like Ohio last November, as well as Florida, New Mexico -- and even the south side of Chicago, where lines were much longer and problems in the polling places were much greater than in bastions of white conservative voters in many DuPage County precincts. Barak Obama chose note to vote against the disenfranchisement of hundreds of thousands of Black voters, in his first official senate vote.

Republocrats like Daley have used the tactic of voter suppression effectively forever. People tout the 'huge margin' by which Daley won his last election -- but they forget to point out that actual voter turnout was in the tank, and that Daley got fewer actual votes than in any previous election.

Yeah politics are complex in the Black community. They're comlex in every community. It would just be so great if the liberal tendencies in the anti-war movement would actually recall this the next time they ask their base to sit on their hands while they shill for a pro-war candidate like Kerry and then wonder why more of their people didn't turn out to vote for their guy.

One of those 'complexities' comes from both Blacks and whites who supported Obama, and now wonder why he didn't stand up for disenfranchised Black voters in states like Ohio when the electoral college results were certified -- unlike members of the Black Congressional Caucus, who mounted vigorous objections to the Republicrats' voter suppression strategies but were barred by congressional rules from voicing their opposition with a vote...unlike their lone Black compatriot in the Senate.

When will Obama stand up for progressive initiatives? He's had plenty opportunity so far, and has failed on every count. Why do you persist in reaching for rhetorical florishes (grounded in paternalism) to justify Obama's support for Condi, when progressive groups throughout the Black and Latino and white communities in this nation are condemning support for her? Why, Carl? Why?

And re your crack about whether progressives would support Jesse Jr. in a prospective bid for the mayor's seat against Daley -- well, duh, yeah, people would support his bid. I have yet to hear one credible peep about a serious bid from Junior to throw his hat in the race. He'd certainly ratchet up his political stock across a range of constituencies if he'd throw in his hat, but I'd be stunned if he would. There ARE a number of rock-solid progressives who are considering a bid against Daley -- and who would be strong, viable candidates. Will you support them? Would the ABB -- anybody but Bush -- strategy apply to a local race against a Republicrat like Daley, or is that a strategy you reserve only for national races that pit two pro-war candidates against one another?

Re: Barak Votes for Condi, Confirms Status As Liberal Sell-Out

by Carl Davidson
28 Jan 2005

Clarifying says: 'When will Obama stand up for progressive initiatives? He's had plenty opportunity so far, and has failed on every count. Why do you persist in reaching for rhetorical florishes (grounded in paternalism) to justify Obama's support for Condi, when progressive groups throughout the Black and Latino and white communities in this nation are condemning support for her? Why, Carl? Why?'

First of all, I am not 'justifying' Obama's stand on anything; I speculated about what might have been one of his reasons. To get more reasons, read Lynn Sweet's piece today or call him up and ask him yourself, or go to one of his consituent meetings and ask.

In the end, he may very well end up with both feet in the DLC camp; right now he's playing footsie with them.

The man claims he's making veterans benefits his first main target. How long has the man been in the senate? A month? Let's see a bit more of what happens before you dump him in the garbage can.

By the way, Jan Schkowsky is now campaigning for the Congress to vote against Bush's new war appropriations. Can we now drag her back out of the garbage can?

This is all getting rather tiresome. As I said in the beginning, these are liberals, and they waver and don't agree with us on many things. But if this day and age, we need, along with other forces, some liberal allies, however wavering, if we are ever going to bring this war to an end and defeat the right. Is that so complicated?

Finally, you don't think Jesse Jr is gearing up for a run? We'll see...

Re: Barak Votes for Condi, Confirms Status As Liberal Sell-Out

by cripes, Carl
28 Jan 2005

Cripes, Carl, you miss the point completely. If we must play in the electoral sector -- one movement strategy among many -- we have to play hardball, as does the opposition. That means extracting real costs and benefits from elected officials when we offer them our sweat equity and valuable support in campaign mode.

That means holding them to some minimum standards on core political points. If Schakowski supports a military academy at Senn, then the portion of her base that opposes this decision needs to let her know, by their voices and their votes. This is the essence of power politics, and while I am not a fan of Alinsky-style organizing, it has been deployed to great effect by Alinskyite groups like National People's Action, which played a core role in the passage of the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) and the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) -- the latter which has directed an estimated $117 billion into community reinvestment over the years.

NPA's done this by employing a range of tactics: providing congressional testimony, lobbying elected officials, organizing in local neighborhoods -- and putting their people on the streets to kick the shit out of the assholes that oppose their goals. They are not a direct democracy group, but they are deeply grounded in the strategy of direct action -- and historically they've sure as hell understand how to mobilize against the opposition, whether that means picketing the homes of federal cabinet members or tarring their elected 'friends' when they go soft on their agenda. While ultraleftists may write off their strategies as reformist, this approach has won some powerful legislation...which of course the current administration is eviscerating as quickly as possible.

There is often great utility in working the inside/outside strategy. So, as an insider yourself who moves in highly leveraged insider Democratic Party circles, I'm wondering what sort of steps you and your cohorts have taken to register your acute disapproval to Obama of his pro-Condi vote, and his anti-enfranchisement vote when he supported certifying the electoral college results. How will you hold his feet to the fire?

This is not a rhetorical question. When Black Commentator correspondent Bruce Dixon outed Obama nationally for playing footsie with the Democratic Leadership Council before the election, Obama rushed to publicly distance himself from the scumsucking fuckwads in the DLC. Now you note that he's playing footsie with them once again. Can we not again employ the strategy of public outing -- and public outrage -- to redirect the man's interests?

Smart campaign volunteers are not automatons. But locally, it seems our liberal pals in projects like CAWI have simply forgotten that when you throw down the resources in time and effort, you get to ask for -- and yes, when necessary, demand -- payback for those efforts. And when it's not forthcoming, why, you make the sucker sweat. That's the core of organizing.

But I fear that CAWI's leadership -- but not CAWI's base -- may have forgotten this. I was stunned to see your response to the notice for this Saturday's organzing meeting about staging a local protest this March on the two-year anniversary against the war. (See link here: http://chicago.indymedia.org/newswire/display/51730/index.php). Basically you wrote that CAWI feels outnumbered by more militant progressive voices at these meetings, reducing you-all to mere 'observer' status. Jesus, Carl, have you ever heard of fucking organizing? Could CAWI not come up with 20 people from their base who could participate in this discussion, or are you and Marilyn Katz the only people empowered to dictate CAWI's policy. I would LOVE it if more CAWI people would come to these meetings, because I thoroughly dispute your assertion that your base is not on the same page as the 'left'. Far from it. CAWI's base -- if not CAWI's leadership -- has always turned out for anti-war events, including those staged by those uppity radicals who support a connect-the-dots approach to the issues and don't think politicians are sacred cows. I think every one of CAWI's base members should come to this meeting. Maybe they'd like the experience of organizing democratically amongst themselves instead of being handed marching orders by their 'leaders'.

Re: Barak Votes for Condi, Confirms Status As Liberal Sell-Out by C. J. Laity (No verified email address) Current rating: 0
28 Jan 2005 Here's what obama voted for:

http://www.kontraband.com/show.asp?ID=1843

Re: Barak Votes for Condi, Confirms Status As Liberal Sell-Out
by Carl Davidson
28 Jan 2005

CJ Laity:

All I can say is take a look at CAWI's noiraqwar listserv on yahoogroups.com You'll see plenty of action by our folks getting on the case of Jan, Barack and plenty of others.

We criticize and pressure them as best we can; we just avoid throwing them into the trashcan of history at every wrong turn.

Re: Barak Votes for Condi, Confirms Status As Liberal Sell-Out

by C. J. Laity Jan 2005

Hey, take a chill pill, Carl, don't know who you are or what you stand for, and wasn't trying to make any kind of statement about you, all I was saying (with a link) was that this is what Obama and all those other toothless, sell-out, back-stabbing, two-faced, spineless, weak, jargon talking, rhetoric flinging, selfish, wheeling and dealing Democrats voted for.

Jan Schakowsky Can Stay in the Trash Can
by Bob Schwartz
28 Jan 2005

I was present when Jan Schakowsky intoned that she was "our peace representative in Washington" but that she backed the naval base at Senn HS. Funny, but that was what Boss Daley and his minions Mary "Admiral" Smith and Arne Duncan wanted, and the object of Dick Durbin's largesse.

Jan (and Obomb'em for that matter) continue to back the Israeli terror regime. But Carl's camp has never had much of a problem with that.

Re: Barak Votes for Condi, Confirms Status As Liberal Sell-Out

by Anne 28 Jan 2005

In the final analysis, Chicago voters will measure Barak by his voting record, and not the image the DNC spinmeisters want to manufacture. And right now, that voting record looks pretty dismal.

Re: Barak Votes for Condi, Confirms Status As Liberal Sell-Out

by up the ante against the dems (
29 Jan 2005

we gotta play hard ball with the dems and make them realize that their are consequences for betraying the left.sure we can play the electoral game a bit, but if they do something we don't agree, they have to feel pain and political pressure for it. They are not our allies.

Re: Barak Votes for Condi, Confirms Status As Liberal Sell-Out

by Carl Davidson
30 Jan 2005

So the far left is going to play "hard ball" with the Dems? How, pray tell? Not that someone can't, but how can you folks do it?

You've never voted for them, at least openly, or publically urged anyone else to vote for them. In fact a good bunch of you are against bourgeois elections altogether. So there's no threat there.

You say there's no difference between them and the Republicans, and it doesn't matter if they lose to Republicans? No threat there either. At best, you tell people who mostly don't vote anyway not to vote, which hardly has them quaking in their boots.

You can disrupt their public meetings, I suppose, or demonstrate outside their offices, but since you don't consider yourself their constiutents, it doesn't much matter to them. In fact, it might build more sympathy for them among the liberals or the center who are among their constituents. Not much threat there.

You are not building any independent electoral organization that might challenge them or, heaven forbid, even the GOP right, and usually oppose the efforts of those who do as revisionist or Stalinist sellouts, so you're no threat there either.

So where's the "hardball?" More street actions denouncing all politicians surrounded by ninja turtles and occaisionally breaking through and disrupting traffic, over and over, until we have the mythical general strike? (But let's make sure there are no left 'authoritarian' or 'vanguardist' political parties to lead it)? I suppose there's some threat to public order and the Bush regime here--which is not a bad thing and worth supporting--but not much that will specifically hurt the Dems. In fact, many of them will backhandly support it and some even openly.

Campaign for a Green or Socialist party that aims its main 'class line' fire against the Dems and capitalism? You might get 1% to 5% of the vote, most of which wouldn't have voted Democratic anyway. Not insignificant if you can pull it off, but still not much of a threat. Even if you do get ballot status, not much of a threat here either unless you can reform the electoral system first, which is probably too reformist for you to work on with the rest of us sellouts. So there's another fizzle.

Your biggest threat, such as it is, is backhandedly helping to elect more Republicans, but the DLC is already doing that to the Dems all by themselves. Your help won't add that much, but it will certainly isolate you even more from the progressives who do vote Democratic or the few progressives who run and get elected as Dems. So you can both be furious with each other out on the margins while the GOP and the Christian right rule the roost.

Sorry folks, but your far left "hardball" amounts to little more than nasty rhetoric on indymedia, nasty leaflets and little newspaper articles that are usually barely readable, and nasty remarks in speeches to people who mostly already agree with you.

Even when the Dems you hate so much are speaking on the same platform with you, like Joe Moore or Jan Schkowsky, do you think your rhetoric hurts them much? Do you really think that you're conferring legitimacy of them before the masses? If you do, you're more deluded that even I imagined. If anything, they give legitimacy to you. So not much of a threat here, either...

We can develop a serious hardball strategy, and I'll willing to work with anyone who's serious, but not this way. Been there and done that, and it goes nowhere....

Re: Barak Votes for Condi, Confirms Status As Liberal Sell-Out

by still curious
30 Jan 2005

Look Carl you can get indignant if you'd like, but if you think your strategy is winning I think you are the one who is deluded. You have yet to explain how your strategy is effective. While you lament about the lack of influence the left has because we don't vote democrat in the first place--what influence do you and people like you have. For all of your influence the Dems ran the most conservative Democrat they could have--opposed to gay marriage, for the war, against immigration, et al. Moreover, the liberals you keep referring to as our allies don't even attempt to offer our side a bone. In fact most of the time in the last election period the left was told to shutup about gay marriage, the war and any other thing that could have held Kerry accountable. Those of us who supported Nader as aan alternative to the prowar antics of the Dems were denounced summarily by liberals like you and others on the left.

You condemn the left as being hopelessly utopian for arguing against the Anybody But Bush strategy and yet it seems that your strategy of "pressuring" the Democrats into being progressive is the most utopian of all. Can you describe to us a period in the history of this country where the left has been able to cajol the Democrats--or even in your logic the "good" Democrats--into doing the right thing? Moreover you are proposing that the Dems will shift in a period in which there is no social movement to put pressure on them to "do the right thing." That is utopian at best naive and silly at its worst.

Instead of making a caricature out the left--from my knowledge only tiny sects call for general strikes out of nowhere and revolution out of nowhere--you should take what other sections of the left are saying seriously. Namely that leftwing and progressive forces will never break out in an influential way in this society until we are truly independent of the Democratic Party. We cannot continue to afford to put the movement on hold every four years so we can elect a Dem who is not as bad as the sitting Republican or GOP running. The past year was a shame. When we had all the moment of 10 million people around the world protesting Bush's bloody war it was all put on the back burner because of ABB. You argued the movement was being made stronger because so many people were being activated on a local level because of voter registration. You argued that these people were going to be right back on the streets on Nov. 3rd. Once again Carl you and your strategy were wrong. In fact, people were deeply demoralized by hte election. Not just because Bush won, but because people like you spent months telling the rest of us that a Bush victory was tantamount to fascism becoming the rule of law. This was supposed to be the most crucial election of our lifetime--and still more than 60 million people didn't vote. That is demoralizing to people. As demoralizing as telling Blacks to vote for Kerry when he refused to mention any issues critical to Blacks; telling gays to vote for Kerry when he refused to come out and support gay marriage, etc...So far from millions of people hitting the streets on Nov. 3rd. Two attitudes prevail because of the collapsing liberals in this country. One, we have to wait and see. You have already expressed this--Obama has only been in office for a month. REally Carl, what bold positions do you expect Obama to take anytime soon and what are you basing htat hope on. And so people are now expected to give these folks the benefit of the doubt and wait. The second is the idea we can't do much until the next election or at lest spend the next few years trying to get a Dem in. And so the vicious cycle continues of thinking the elections are the main thing that matters. That is clearly what you think as you degrade and minimize the attempts of activists to organize protest and look for some other political vehicle than the hopeless Democratic Party.

Carl, it is you who are the utopian.



Re: Barak Votes for Condi, Confirms Status As Liberal Sell-Out
by Wrong again, Carl
30 Jan 2005

Carl, it is a mistake to paint with a broad brushstroke every person who is horrified by Obama's vote for Condi. You suggest that people comnplaining about that vote on this thread are mouthpieces for the usual suspects who opt out of electoral politics anyway.

Wrong. Many of the posters to this thread have done and continue to do electoral work, as one tactic among many. And millions of voters, actual and prospective -- peace protesters, 'minorities', advocates of women's control over their bodies, et al -- are turned off more and more each day by an 'opposition' party that increasingly stands for nothing except their own security as corporate-sponsored elected hacks.

40% of the eligible electorate did not show up at the polls on November 2. At least thousands of those 'non-voters' tried to vote, but were denied that right in states like Ohio. That's OK with your boy Obama. Surely millions among those non-voters didn't show up because they fail to see the choice between a pretty-pro-war candidate and a very-pro-war candidate, both of whom are deeply dependant on the corporate power that bankrolls both their election funds.

The root problem here is that you have little confidence -- and apparently great contempt -- for the growing number of Americans who are revolted as much by the Dems' craven lack of spine as the Republicans' craven agenda. Bush won by a margin of roughly 2 million votes -- the extremist Christian rightwing voters who did NOT turn out four years ago. What platform, what program did the Democratic Party and its lead candidates present to bring out similarly estranged Democratic Party-leaning voters? And when those voters did turn out to vote and were turned back, the Dems totally failed to support them in the Senate by refusing to certify bogus results in states like Ohio and New Mexico.

Projects that you support like CAWI have been arguing for some years now that the anti-war movement is too militant, and that the message and the strategies need to be sanitized and dumbed down to appeal to a greater 'mainstream, middle-of-the-road mass.' BUT YOUR OWN BASE came to a city-wide open planning meeting this weekend and voted democratically in huge numbers not to cave into the City's attempts to ghettoize the upcoming March 19 protest to the second anniversary of the war to some empty sidestreet.

You're out of touch with your own base. How can you possibly presume to have the political wisdom to speak for the rest of us -- and please note that the 'rest of us' are not a handful of anti-electoral 'militants', but a growing number of your own base who are as disgusted by Obama as the militants. Read the Black newspapers and the Black commentators, for crying out loud. They're not giving Barak Obama a pass on his deplorable vote for Condi. Why the fuck should the rest of us?

Re: Barak Votes for Condi, Confirms Status As Liberal Sell-Out

by
30 Jan 2005
Oh, and Carl, your assumption that everyone posting against your opinions here is necessarily white is wrong. Just FYI.

Re: Barak Votes for Condi, Confirms Status As Liberal Sell-Out

by marat 30 Jan 2005

Davidson writes " Sorry folks, but your far left "hardball" amounts to little more than nasty rhetoric on indymedia, nasty leaflets and little newspaper articles that are usually barely readable, and nasty remarks in speeches to people who mostly already agree with you".

LOL.

Carl, you might take a look at what well known and widely respected Chicago black activist Bob Starks had to say about Obama's vote on Condi in the latest edition of InDigo. ( not quite a 'little newspaper article that is barely readable' but one of the most popular mainstream journals read in the Black community. )

Very interesting commentary from someone who has done considerable local electoral organizing in this town...most notably around the Harold Washington campaign. You might learn something here.


Re: Barak Votes for Condi, Confirms Status As Liberal Sell-Out

by Carl Davidson
30 Jan 2005

Goodness, from what this "Davidson" guy sounds like, I'm against him too!

He's supposedly for pressuring, shifting and refoming the Democrats, looking to them every four years as our saviours, and so on.

Well, I'm also against all those delusions!

I'm for replacing the Democratic party, but in a way that strengthens the progressive forces rather than strengthening the GOP and the right. Do you hear that? REPLACING not "reforming, etc."

So how do you replace it? You have to build independent organizations from the grass roots upwards and network them nationally and internationally. Who do you do it with? Progressive grassoots forces inside and outside of the parties, united around core values and an independent program, not only stating what you are against, but stating how you would run things so they serve the masses of people, rather than low-road parasites.

What are the necessities? Changing the electoral laws, state by state, to allow for instant runoff, fusion, proportion representation, etc. Until you can do that you still are stuck, on a case by case basis, with lesser evilism, to defeat the worst with the less worse from time to time.

You also have to encourage progressives in the Democratic party to sharpen differences and build their own organizations in anticipation of when the party implodes. That means you might help some of their candidates from time to time as an ally with that candidate or grouping, but not the entire party. That way you have something for your independent organization to merge with, at the appropriate moments, to create a larger force to defeat the main danger on the right.

It's called buiding a counter-hegemonic bloc by waging both a war of position and war of manuver with the most dangerous of you enemies, and defeating them in a way that strengthens the self-rule capacities of the progressive and moderate popular forces at the grassroots, the working class and its allies especially.

If all you can do is throw around slogans and dogmatic rules--"never vote for a Democrat"--you might find all this a little to rough going for your mode of thinking. But if you can emancipate your mind from dogmas a bit, its's not so hard to figure out.

Indepdendent of the Democrats? I've got news for you. The radical left already independent of the Democrats; it already has no real connections or influence with them. So that should put you in great shape to forge ahead with your plans! What's more, the radical left is practically independent of the entire electoral process altogether. Except for a few scattered Greens, it doesn't have any elected officials anywhere.

And you're worried about being co-opted by Democrats? You should be so lucky as to be suffering from that danger. Right now, there's nothing in the way of ongoing electoral organization or voting blocs you have that's worth co-opting.

By the way, Obama is not "my boy", as one of you put it above, and I hope we're aware why we shouldn't refer to Black leaders of any sort as the "boys" of anyone. That's what I meant a few posts back about needing to be sensitive about how you put things when criticizing positions taken by Blacks or other minorities, and here's a fresh example of what I was talking about.

I voted for Obama because he spoke out against the war and to end the lily-white monopoly in the Senate. I'd do it again, even though he's a liberal-to-center politician, rather than a left progressive like, say, Kucinich. Hopefully, he'll stick with us on the war on the key votes, and we'll do what we can to make it happen. CAWI's folks in Hyde Park already took out an open letter ad to him in the local press on the issue, and others have contacted him in other ways.

But if you're someone who thinks the main danger is liberalism and the Dems, rather than the Bush regime, the neocons, the corporate low-roaders and the right, then we're not on the same page. Except for tactical moments around this or that action, we don't have much common ground, and probably should not waste each others time until we can get on the same page.

Also, I'm not hot on the gay marriage issue, even though I'll give it critical support, because my belief is that everyone, gay or straight, should equally get the same CIVIL UNIONS and benefits at City Hall. If any couple wants the sacrament of marriage, they should go to a church that offers it to them. The government should not be in the marriage business for anyone, gays or straights. That's a real secular left position, but unfortunately, no one is fighting for it, having been co-opted by the more reformist gay marriage option.

There are a number of good starting points for building the grassroots nonpartisan alliance agaist the right--the Walmart campaign, ending the war in Iraq, school reform, economic development projects to grow jobs, and so on. As I said, serious people are working on them, and anyone else who's serous is welcome to get involved. But leave the left posturing behind...

Re: Barak Votes for Condi, Confirms Status As Liberal Sell-Out

by gay
30 Jan 2005

Wow Carl, gays and lesbians of Chicago will be glad to hear that you're not "hot" on gay marriage. Stop the fucking presses, CArl Davidson's not hot on gay marriage. For one its not up to straights like yourself to define the agenda or political tactics of GLBT people. Gays have made equal marriage the centerpiece of our struggle in the coming months and year. Civil unions were a radical position a few years ago, now we are not interested. We want full marriage rights. Should the government be involved in teh marriage business--no,but they are and if you are GLBT you have to deal with reality and not with what should be. The fight for GLBT rights is centered around equal marriage and that's where people who genuinely support equal rights for gays ;should be lined up as well.

Davidson your response is troubling to say the least. But it does provide a little more clarity into your support for Kerry and the Democrats.

You are truly a pathetic excuse for a progressive.

Re: Barak Votes for Condi, Confirms Status As Liberal Sell-Out

By db
31 Jan 2005
To Carl:

I got a question, since we're REPLACING the Dems with something completely different than the Dems, do we still have to call them Dems? Can't we replace those fuckers with socialists or something new? I mean, if they're so fucked up that we have to replace them, who the fuck needs them?

Re: Barak Votes for Condi, Confirms Status As Liberal Sell-Out

by Carl Davidson
31 Jan 2005

Reply to 'Gay':

Since you agree with me that government shouldn't be in the marriage business, but as long as they are, we have to go the equal gay marriage route, we're actually on the same page, depite your hyperbole. I just wish we had made getting the government out of the marriage business, and strictly in the civil union business, part of the battle, which it's not.

Reply to DB:

You can call them, the Dems, whatever you want, but for clarity's sake, both they and ordinary people call them the Democratic Party. What I want to replace them with is an electoral alliance that includes, at the core of its program, Economy Democracy, the variant on market socialism outlined in David Schweikart's book, 'After Capitalism,' a review of which I posted here a few months back and you can also look up at www.solidarityeconomy.net It's a long term project with a number of intermediate steps, but now is a good time to start.



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