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| Download a PDF of this flier here |
By Project for a Working People’s World
7-14-15
The activists around this blog and the Project for a Working People’s World, published a statement earlier on the rise of the
Bernie Sanders for President campaign and how socialists or other social activists
or anti-capitalists should relate to it. The statement came out of
discussions we have had in our weekly phone conferences and on our small list
serve.
Unlike the old methods, where we had to appear to know
everything in advance and set a firm line that we must defend ferociously never
daring to retreat, we have thought more about what we recognize is a complex
issue. Discussion, debate and collective decision making is the best way
to reach the best conclusions. We should not be afraid to change our minds as
the facts on the ground change or if we become more aware of them.
Having said this we stand by our position in our
earlier statement that we, those of us that have formed the PWPW, do not
support Sanders for President, for among other things, his support for US
foreign policy and his support for the Zionist regime. But also because he is
running as a Democrat. The latter means that he will be telling the thousands
of his supporters to vote for Hillary Clinton, the likely candidate of one
of the two main parties of the 1%. It is extremely unlikely, almost impossible
that the corporate backers of the Democratic Party would allow Sanders to be
the party’s candidate for present in 2016. If they did and Sanders
accepted this position, this would be an even bigger betrayal of his supporters
and we would still not support him.
In our previous statement we were very clear who not
to vote for, that is not for Republicans and Democrats and this includes
Sanders. However what we did not do was make clear who the tens and tens of
thousands of Sanders supporters and the millions of working people and youth
who want an alternative to the rule of the 1% should vote for.
We did not explain what political action we thought
his supporters should take when he openly comes out for support for the
Democratic Party nominee. We explained that these supporters should involve
themselves in the work of the Project for a Working peoples World, building an
alliance against the offensive of the 1% and using mass direct action to oppose
this offensive, and we still believe that those who presently look to Sanders
should do so. But what we did not do was deal with the concrete situation when
2016 comes round and who these people should vote for?
We know that Sanders would never support the program
and direct action strategy needed to implement this program never mind actually
accomplish even his own reforms. He will end up telling his supporters to vote
for Hillary Clinton. By doing so he will demobilize his own base. (Details
in our flier of the PWPW here. Feel free to download and distribute.)
Facing up to the fact that it was not enough to say
who not to vote for, we concluded that it is necessary to right away give an
alternative to working people and the youth who are looking to Sanders and who
are looking for an alternative to the 1%. It would be wrong to just call for
the building of the PWPW and leave it there. The PWPW does not have the
resources itself to run a candidate for President, nor does it see the
candidates of small left wing groups as anything but immature gestures.
Instead we think the best strategy for Sanders’
supporters and all those who seek an alternative to the rule of the 1% , is to
throw their activity behind the Green Party and its candidate, Jill
Stein.
The Green Party is not a workers’ Party. It is made up
of working class people, middle class people and youth of all classes. A
workers’ party is a party that has been thrown up out of the struggles of
the working class, either the struggles of the trade unions or the struggles of
the working class outside the trade unions but clearly composed of the working
class fighting for its own interests. Such a workers party is what we prefer
and continue to stand for. But no such party exists in the US at the moment and
given the role of the trade union leaders in supporting the Democratic Party no
such party will be built in the months running up to 2016.
There are the newer phenomena of left parties such as
in Greece, Spain, etc which have been formed by mass workers struggles and
which lead mass movements of the working class at least, for the present. There
are none of these in the USA at this time. And the Green Party is not one of
these either as it does not have such a mass base.
These are arguments for not
supporting the Greens and calling for a vote for Jill Stein in 2016. But this
is not the whole story. The most important factor in the present political situation
in the US at the moment, from the point of view of trying to take steps towards
taking on the 1% and their parties and towards building a mass workers party,
is how do we address the hundreds of thousands who are looking to Sanders. What do we say to them?
What do we say to these
forces when Sanders disappoints them when many of them will be looking for
somewhere else to go? At that moment there will be severe disappointment
and there will be tens and tens of thousands of Sanders supporters in danger of
turning their backs on political struggle and walking away.
So against this background
who do we say these people should vote for? What do we say their political
activity should be now to prepare for when this time comes? It is not correct
as some do to involve themselves in the Sanders activity and call on him to
break from the Democrats and run as an independent. This will not happen short
of a complex fracturing of the Republican and Democratic political
monopoly in the months ahead. And even then Sanders would not run as a workers
party candidate.
It is in this context that we
now call on Sanders’ supporters and all who oppose the offensive of the 1%
against working people and the environment to draw these conclusions and explain
that Sanders will not build a workers’ or mass left party and break from
him. We stress that steps have to be taken instead to build an
alternative. If this is not done the supporters of Sanders will be demoralized
and have no place to go when he comes out in support of the Democratic nominee.
When he does this, his supporters will receive a severe shock. They will
be forced to think anew. In this situation they must have a different political
alternative around which to gather.
So we are now calling for all
those who are active in or supportive of the Sanders campaign to explain that
what he is doing is leading his supporters up a blind alley and when he
withdraws and supports the Democratic party nominee, most likely the right wing
Clinton, his supporters will have nowhere to go. By taking the
road we now advocate, breaking from the Sanders campaign and supporting
and building the Green Party the thousands of people supporting Sanders
for the right reasons, that is supporting his rhetoric again austerity,
inequality and corporate rule, will have someone other than Hillary Clinton to
vote for in 2016.
In doing so we recognize that
the Green Party is not a workers’ party. However it is the party with the
closest thing to a national infrastructure. It is the Party which takes up
capitalism's threat to life on earth. It is also the party that on occasion has
shown signs of being prepared to take direct action, like when Jill Stein its
then Presidential candidate was arrested for trying to force her way into the
Presidential debates which were closed to all but candidates from the
capitalist parties.
There are problems with the
Greens position on a number of issues. It could be more clear on its
position on Zionism and imperialism though in relation to the former, Sanders
supported more weaponry for the Zionist regime in its murderous war against
Gaza. The Greens did not. Sanders also supports expanding NATO’s presence in
Europe strengthening US imperialism and further destabilizing that
region.
However we do not leave it
there, that is just calling for support for the Green Party and Jill Stein. For
those who agree with our position and get involved in the Green Party and work
to get support for it in the 2016 elections, we also call on them to struggle
within that party on two fronts. One is to orient that party decisively to the
working class, seek endorsements and support, official and unofficial, at
international and local level from the unions and for unions to have a specific
place in the internal structures of the Green Party. That is, to turn the Green
Party in the direction of becoming a workers party.
We believe this now develops
our position to where we put forward a credible alternative for the many
hundreds of thousands who will be disillusioned with Sanders when he shows his
Democratic Party loyalty to its fullest extent. While advocating this position
as the best option we can see at this time given the balance of class
forces we do not in any way forget that we stand for a mass workers party and
we do not cease advocating for a mass workers party. However the union leaders
are locked into their support for the Democratic Party at this stage and this
will not change before the 2016 elections. At the same time there are a myriad
of candidates on single and local issues running all over the country.
Therefore we believe the best option at present is for all these forces, to
move to the Green Party and increase its base and its credibility as an
alternative place in which to work.
We also believe that in moving
to and supporting the Green Party we have to seek not only to shift it more
towards becoming a workers party, but also seek to move it to the left and
becoming an openly socialist party. The problems of climate change and
pollution, the problems of inequality, the problems of mass starvation and
poverty and lack of education, the problems of racism and sexism, the problem
of war, none of these can be solved on a capitalist basis. The alternative
to the system of the 1% is democratic international socialism.
The degree to which this
effort succeeds is likely to be small. However the more it succeeds
the more forces will be saved from demoralization when Sanders refuses to break
from the Democrats and their capitalist policies and the greater will be the forces
that can be held together and developed to continue the struggle for the real
alternative, for a mass workers party with democratic and international
socialist policies.
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