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by rootless2 on Sat Dec 5th, 2009 at 10:41:43 PM EST
Let Obama continue his corporatist policies and lose out the elections to the right fair and square?

But post this as a diary here.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Sun Dec 6th, 2009 at 04:39:39 AM EST
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I'm certainly not claiming to have a general magic key, but it's easy to see specifics e.g. on economic policy. For example, the US far right would like to blame Bernanke and Geithner for the financial crisis - and by implication Obama. And much of the US "left" has joined in - although it's utterly clear that no positive result can follow for the "left". As a political tactic, the demonization of "banksters", rhetoric about "blood sucking squids" and so on seems to me to play into the hands of the far right and its conspiratorial view. On the other hand a positive program of building green manufacturing and pushing for a consumer protection agency to break banking power, demanding a jobs program, and so on has actual potential positive outcomes politically in terms of stronger unions and control of outposts of government.
by rootless2 on Sun Dec 6th, 2009 at 07:59:24 AM EST
[ Parent ]
I'm thinking of how to present this in a different way and will post then.
by rootless2 on Sun Dec 6th, 2009 at 08:00:33 AM EST
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So what was Thälmanns options in 1931?

Supporting the attempts by Brũning, Schleicher or Papen to run a "presidential" government (ruling by emergency decrees issued by Hindenburg)? Ironically, I think that in the power game around the monarchist Hindenburg, getting the support of the communists would be a kiss of death. And if one of those had won, I doubt Thälmann would have stayed free long anyway.

He went for the only option that could lead to power for the communist party, building organization and support until they could do a revolution. He failed, but not from not supporting the lesser evil in 1931. And the remainders of the organization worked as resistance within Germany.

A vote for PES is a vote for EPP! A vote for EPP is a vote for PES! Support the coalition, vote EPP-PES in 2009!

by A swedish kind of death on Sun Dec 6th, 2009 at 06:21:50 AM EST
[ Parent ]
It is also silly to claim that the Communists focused on criticising the SocDems -- in a time period they engaged in open street warfare with the SA and the Stahlhelm. (BTW, so did the Social Democrats: the activity of their Reichsbanner militia is a less often told part of that history.)

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.
by DoDo on Sun Dec 6th, 2009 at 06:39:12 AM EST
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In 1928 the Commitern policy was set as opposition to "social fascists" (social dems) first.
by rootless2 on Sun Dec 6th, 2009 at 07:47:09 AM EST
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They went for the popular front too late - and they opposed the "social fascists" as the primary enemy. Through the late 1920's and even into the 1930s the KDP kept venturing into tactical coalitions against the "social fascists" e.g. in the prussian government. You can get a flavor for the debate at the time even from Trotsky

The whole misfortune lies in the fact that the policy of the Central Committee of the German Communist Party, in part consciously and in part unconsciously, proceeds from the recognition of the inevitability of a fascist victory. In fact, in the appeal for the "Red United Front" published on November 29, 1931, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Germany proceeds from the idea that it is impossible to defeat fascism without first defeating the Social Democracy.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/germany/1931/311208.htm

I don't want to get lost in the details of Weimar history. The point is that the far right in the US is a powerful political force with a clear willingness to use violence and with a large militia activity on its "fringes" and that it would be suicidal to underestimate its potential in the course of lashing out against the Obama government.

by rootless2 on Sun Dec 6th, 2009 at 07:45:40 AM EST
[ Parent ]

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