We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Sunday, February 7, 2016

Sanders and the left feint in capitalist politics

Click here to access article by Patrick Martin from World Socialist Web Site

Martin expresses very adequately the significance and the use of Sen. Bernie Sanders in the primary elections of the Democratic Party. I agree 99% with his views as written in this article. I only disagree with his advocacy for the Socialist Equality Party which this website represents. This latter party is a vanguard type party which has been thoroughly discredited by history as a worthy option to replace capitalist rule. But the 99% includes some very valuable insights. Here is one:
If the American financial aristocracy thought Sanders represented a genuine threat to its interests, it would not be putting him on national television to deliver his jeremiads before a mass audience. The ruling elite has more than a century of experience in the use of such figures to manipulate mass sentiment and safeguard the profit system from challenges from below.
If Sanders were a genuine socialist and a real threat to capitalist rule, he would be assassinated within days. Of course, his death would be made to look like an accident or suicide.