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Green Party candidate Howie Hawkins takes part in a New York gubernatorial debate in 2018. (Hans Pennink / AP Photo)

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Bhaskar Sunkara, editor of the provocative and popular socialist Jacobin magazine, tweeted last week that he intends to vote for Green Party presidential candidate Howie Hawkins in November. And yes, it matters. Jacobin has a considerable reach. It claims to have a paid print circulation of 50,000, while its website draws over 2 million visitors a month. Jacobin is particularly influential among young leftists, with more-radical-than-thou tendencies that reflect the idealism of recent recruits to left-wing ideas. It was near-messianic in its devotion to Bernie Sanderss candidacy.Ad Policy

The danger here is obvious. It only takes a small number of votes in key swing statesWisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Arizona, North Carolina, Nevada, New Hampshire, Virginia, Iowa, and Floridawhere the margin of victory could be a few thousand or a few hundred votes, to hand Donald Trump a victory, as we saw in 2016. In Wisconsin, Trumps margin over Clinton was 22,748 votes, while Green Party candidate Jill Stein won 31,072 votes. In Michigan, Trump defeated Hillary Clinton by 10,704 votes, while Stein got 51,463 votes.

In his 2019 book, The Socialist Manifesto: The Case for Radical Politics in an Era of Extreme Inequality, Sunkara expressed concern that American socialists had isolated ourselves in sectarian irrelevance. Instead, he wrote, socialists need to create an electoral strategy that can represent the distinct interests of working people, but without demanding that voters start immediately supporting unviable third-party candidacies.Current Issue

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Hawkins, this years Stein, is about as unviable as one can imagine. A perennial Green Party candidate, since 2008 hes run for the Senate, the House, governor of New York, and Syracuse mayor, city council, and auditornever garnering more than a handful of votes.

Sunkara lives in New York, a blue state where Joe Biden is in no danger of losing to Trump. But Sunkara didnt condition his support for Hawkins. If just enough people in swing states follow Sunkaras example and vote for Hawkins rather than Biden, it could help reelect a fascist-wannabe president.

The Covid-19 crisis and the economic collapse have exposed Trumps ignorance, mendacity, and incompetence for the world to see. Hes demonstrated no compassion or concern for the 50,000 people who have already died. He has used the crisis as an opportunity to promote his reelection, further his agenda of putting profits over people, and scapegoat immigrants, the media, China, the World Health Organization, and Democrats to divert attention from his own failures.

You dont have to love Biden to understand that Trump unleashed for a second term will be much worse than his first term. Trump will use every means at his disposal (the FBI, the Justice Department, Supreme Court and other judicial nominations, and the post office) to repress progressive movements and restrict the right to protest. After four more years of Trump, our democracy will be on life support, in need of hard-to-find ventilators.

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Biden is certainly no socialist. In the past hes taken some positions that made him look like a corporate shill. In 2005, for example, he supported an overhaul of bankruptcy law that favored banks and credit card companies over consumers. At the time, Elizabeth Warren, then a Harvard law professor and bankruptcy expert, attacked Bidens vote. Now, Biden has embraced Warrens plan to roll back the 2005 law and make it easier for people to go through the bankruptcy process, including allowing student loans to be treated like other debts. Thanks in part to Sanders, and the Democratic Partys leftward shift, Biden has adopted other progressive stances on key issuesthe minimum wage, health care, workers rights, abortion, climate change, and college debtand could be pushed further left during the campaign and after he takes office. Last week, for example, Biden said that the next round of coronavirus stimulus needs to be a hell of a lot bigger than last months $2 trillion CARES Act, including massive aid to states and cities to maintain essential services and avoid having to lay off teachers, cops, firefighters, and other public employeesand without the handouts to corporate America .Election 2020

The question for progressives isnt whether they can fall in love with Joe Biden. It is about changing the political playing field to increase the odds of winning fights for reforms that improve peoples lives. Michael Harrington, the founder of Democratic Socialists of America, described that as pursuing the left wing of the possible.

For progressives, the question boils down to this: Who is more likely to respond to pressure to move us closer to Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, and an end to student debt: Biden or Trump? This is not a theoretical question. Every vote for Hawkins in key swing states is, in reality, a vote for Trump. Sunkara is a smart guy. He can do the math.

In the past decade, after starting his magazine in 2010 while an undergraduate history major at George Washington University, Sunkara has become a prominent presence on the left. Hes written for The Guardian,Foreign Policy, The Nation, and other publications. The 30-year-old has been profiled in The New York Times, The New Yorker, and Columbia Journalism Review, and is frequently quoted in the media as a representative of millennial and Generation Z leftists. He was a vice chair of Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) until the organization eliminated that position three years ago.

Jacobin represents a young left that has enough adherents to help reelect Trump if they follow Sunkaras example. It occupies a similar political space in the left-wing media as The Young Turks and Chapo Trap House, appealing to young people radicalized after the Great Recession by the Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, Dreamers, #Metoo, and Sunrise movements.

Among young radicals, Jacobin and DSA are two of the most prominent sources of ideas and activism. DSA has grown from 6,000 to 60,000 members in the past four years and has a much wider following. A 2019 Gallup Poll found that 43 percent of Americans, including 70 percent of Democrats and 58 percent of 1834-year-olds, believe that socialism would be a good thing for the country. About 40 DSA members now serve in public office, including two members of Congress (Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York) and six members of the Chicago City Council.

In 2016, and again this year, DSA members worked hard for Sanders. Once he withdrew, the groups leaders announced that they were not officially endorsing Biden, a move that stirred considerable controversy among its own ranksand among older leftists, including over 80 former members of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), the 1960s radical group, who published an open letter to DSAers urging them to support, if not totally embrace, Biden. Jacobin quickly posted a rejoinder by Daniel Finn, one of its editors, titled An Open Letter from SDS Veterans Haranguing Young Socialists to Back Biden Was a Bad Idea.

But DSAs non-endorsement of Biden is strategically different from affirmative support for Hawkins. In fact, DSA insiders believe that most of the groups members will vote for Biden. Moreover, DSA chapters are working for progressive (non-socialist) Democrats for Congress, governors seats, and state legislative campaigns. So at least theyre getting out the Democratic vote, which in the end will help Biden defeat Trump.

In contrast, Sunkaras stance is self-indulgentan individual act of virtue signaling rather than part of a collective movement for justice. At its worst, it is a reflection of what one can only view as indifference to real human suffering.

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In a second term, Trump will double down on his fascist instincts and foment increasingly overt white supremacist violence, xenophobia, nativism, and anti-Semitism. Hell seek to dismantle unions and workers rights, slash the already-torn safety net, eviscerate voting rights and civil liberties, and hand over more public funds and government services (such as prisons, the post office, health care, national parks, and schools) to big corporations. Trump will try to starve cities and states by denying federal funding for key services, as Mitch McConnell proposed in a memo leaked to the press last week. McConnells plan is designed to punish Democratic cities and states and bust public-sector unions, who are leading the fight against Trump and the Republicans.

Trump will further populate the federal courts with reactionaries and likely get to appoint at least two more Kavanaugh-like right-wingers to the Supreme Court (to replace Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Stephen Breyer), solidifying the courts Republican supermajority.

As a result, progressives will spend the next four years fighting defensive battles, simply trying to stop things from getting much worse. Any hope for moving a progressive agenda forward will be lost.

After withdrawing from the presidential contest, Sanders quickly endorsed Biden and said that not voting for the Democratic nominee against Trump is irresponsible. If Trump wins, thanks to enough people like Sunkara voting Green, he will no doubt deny any responsibility for the tens of millions of Americans who will lose their jobs, housing, health care, food stamps, clean air, safe workplaces, unions, civil rights, voting rights, right to abortion, and right to same-sex marriage, who will see their pay and pensions cut, or who will be deported.

Whats important is not the intent but the consequences of ones actions. Sunkara may be a young radical, but hes old enough to know better.

This article has been updated.

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WTF Is Jacobin's Editor Thinking in Voting Green? - The Nation

Work by Mario Sandoval, courtesy of Jos Mart National Library. Photo: Granma

The arrival of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin's ideas to Cuba has a history, inseparable from socialist ideals and the emergence of the Soviet Union. But a great door was opened with the triumph of a revolution made with the humble, by the humble, and for the humble, which did not take long to embrace socialism.

The popular reception of this process was supported in Cuba by a national history that had, almost 50 years before 1917, its own foundational October, that of 1868, when our wars of independence were launched. In the search for freedom and social justice, this cause was forged with the fight against slavery.

As a group, the richest Cubans began to distance themselves from this search, and deserted the example of founding fathers like Carlos Manuel de Cspedes and Ignacio Agramonte, and the unjustly oft-forgotten Francisco Vicente Aguilera, among others. The leadership of the struggle was increasingly concentrated in more humble hands.

Jos Mart brought these aspirations to the fore in the second half of the nineteenth century. With brilliance that continues to light the way, he cast his lot "with the poor of the earth" and against emerging U.S. imperialism. Such was the inheritance bequeathed to Fidel Castro and the revolutionary movement he led, which has transformed Cuba since 1959.

In this effort, based on the interaction of thought and action, the central contributions of Lenin, Marx, Engels and others were incorporated - although here we are talking about the leader whose 150th anniversary is being celebrated. With intelligence, wisdom and honesty, Lenin embraced Marx's ideas, interpreting them in his time, under current circumstances. He applied them creatively in a country that was far from developed capitalism, with contradictions that would not easily open the way to the construction of socialism, a hope that Marx came to hold.

The situation in Russia and its neighboring possessions posed enormous challenges to socialist aspirations, and not only in that nation. The colonial reality, so vast and relevant in much of the world, also demanded attention. Among the many challenges was the need overcome obstacles inherited from economic and social relations with feudal roots or, thinking of other locations, from the burdens of the so-called Asian mode of production, a label that is controversial, but points to a reality that left its mark.

Socialism did not emerge from developed capitalism, which, in fact, has produced barbarism, an increasingly bloody form of barbarism. In the United States at the end of the 19th century - where the system was already advancing toward its most powerful phase - a Cuban, Latin American and universal revolutionary, Jos Mart, could see that justice was not flourishing in that society, but rather imperialism, as he precociously used the term.

He died in combat in 1895, anxious to prevent the United States' expansionist plans from being consummated. Years later, when the countrys nature was more fully developed, Lenin was able to interpret the phenomenon theoretically, while he was leading a revolution to found the first workers and peasants state. Marti, on the other hand, further developed the conviction he metaphorically summarized when he described the duty of Latin Americans: "When a problem appears in Cojmar, they are not going to look for the solution to Dantzig." He wrote it in his essay "Our America", published in January of 1891.

If Mart demanded that the reality Latin Americans were called upon to transform guide revolutionaries work, Lenin did the same under his conditions. Not those he imagined or would have preferred, but the conditions he was obliged to face. He was not a cabinet scholar, but a revolutionary who took immediate action to ensure the survival of the socialist project he was leading.

It is not irresponsible to assume that not all the measures taken pleased him. Nor would they satisfy later revolutionaries, who also needed to confront their own realities, not imagined ones. In Cuba, we know of the disagreements a revolutionary like Ernesto Guevara expressed with some of Lenin's economic practices. Neither of the two, nor others, faced, or would face an ideal world.

In other locations today, there is talk of betrayal by Lenin and the Party he created. Lenin betrayed no one, he betrayed nothing. He strove tirelessly through the complexities of reality, and before contenders of different tendencies, not all necessarily enemies, and none more stubborn than the facts. But he always put light and principled resolve first.

When the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) was dissolved, it was no longer even remotely Lenin's Bolshevik party, even though it still had members who knows how many who wanted to keep it alive. Had it been Lenin's party, it could not have been demobilized as it was. In any case, it would have been obliged to wage an underground struggle, of which Lenin was a master. The exercise of power is more arduous and complicated.

Some polls show that the majority of the Russian people regret the changes that led to their countrys current reality. Yes, the role that Russia plays in international politics is commendable, and, at its best moments, would be unthinkable without the Soviet heritage. But the regrets cited require and deserve to be studied, not as a mere curiosity.

In an effort to silence the value of Lenin's work, Stalin's practices are commonly cited. Certainly, personalities play a certain role, sometimes extraordinary; but they are part of a greater reality, which defines them, however capable they may be of influencing this reality.

Around, under and above Lenin, and Stalin - and others - was the party, with its membership. If the organization had played its role fully, with intelligence and courage, would Stalin have been able to commit the excesses he did? But perhaps nothing can prevent some from attributing others to him today, just as attempts are made to equate him with Hitler, a perverse fashionable maneuver.

Among the cardinal ideas that Jos Mart brought not only to Cuba, one stands out, summoning not only those who lead, but also, and above all, the people, who must make it count: "Ignore the despots; for the people, the suffering masses, are the true leaders of revolutions," as he stated January 24, 1880.

Only by asserting this idea will the so-called masses be able to fulfill their duty and achieve - in their socialist efforts - a goal that was frustrated in Our Americas independence struggle, as Mart implored: "Common cause with the oppressed must be made, to strengthen the system opposed to the oppressors interests and customary ways of ruling," reads the aforementioned essay of 1891. Take note: a system opposed not only to the interests of the oppressors, but also their customary ways of ruling.

In these aspirations, the legacy of Mart and those of Lenin and Marx are united from different historical and intellectual angles. Proof of this is the presence of Marts ideas as a principle in the Constitution of the Republic of Cuba, with socialist aspirations, and those of Marx and Lenin, sustained by the explicit inclusion of communist ideals that the people demanded, not as a tacit backdrop.

If reality is to provide Lenin a worthy tribute, 150 years after his birth, and ensure he is not unjustly forgotten, the current pandemic of capitalism is enough, worse than that of the new coronavirus, aggravated by the systematic crisis. The historical and moral need to build a political, social, and cultural civilizing model different from the capitalist one is confirmed.

This system has experience in ensuring its own survival at any cost. But the survival of the human species is in danger, and neither resignation nor conformity are of any use. The way forward is to fight and struggle, as Che would say: Always onward to victory!

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Lenin: the leader, the reality, the people Cuba Granma - Official voice of the PCC - Granma English

Over the last few centuries, many thinkers have been attracted to the idea of introducing a Universal Basic Income (UBI) an arrangement under which the state regularly sends an amount of money to all citizens without them having to meet any test of need. The proposals appeal lies in its simplicity, low cost of administration and apparent fairness.

Interest in this idea has burgeoned over the past few years, driven by a growing fear that in future, although robots and AI will make our economy much more productive, millions of people will be unable to find any sort of employment. There is therefore a danger of mass poverty in an age of abundance.

In my recent book The AI Economy, I explained why I am not persuaded by either the likelihood of this nightmare vision being realised or the suitability of a UBI to address the consequent problems if it were. I stand by those arguments. But the coronavirus crisis potentially provides a new source of support for UBI. Last week more than 100 opposition MPs and peers proposed that the Government should introduce a UBI of 50 per week in order to counter the economic impact of the virus. Forget abundance. Now it is a matter of relieving poverty and boosting demand in times of scarcity. Do they have a point?

The proposal is not entirely daft. The American government is making one-off payments of $1,200 (970) to every adult and an additional $500 per child. And one-off payments of about $1,000 per person have been announced in Japan and Hong Kong.

Such payments can be seen as the equivalent of one-off tax reductions but with the benefit appearing pretty much immediately and falling equally on (almost) all citizens alike, including those at the bottom of the pile who do not pay any tax. This measure is simple and, since most people benefit, it is politically appealing and may be quickly agreed. It is useful in countries that do not have extensive welfare systems. So what about introducing a similar measure here, whether as a one-off or a regular payment?

Let us be clear. There is no argument about whether it is right for governments to give financial assistance during these extraordinary times. The issue is about the form of such assistance.

Before the coronavirus, the main arguments against a UBI were that one, it would potentially undermine the incentive to work, and arouse widespread resentment on the part of those in society who did still work; two, to give any meaningful benefit to recipients, it would need to be set at such a rate that there would be a huge rise in public expenditure which would have to be financed by taxation, impeding the efficiency of the economy and reducing output; and three, if the UBI replaced other benefits at no extra cost to the Exchequer then the recipients of existing benefits would be worse off.

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Government must reject this road to socialism - Telegraph.co.uk

SaturdayApr25,2020at12:01AM

Some of our millennials are having an affair with socialism. They think it will give them all that they want. It wont!

What it will give them, judging by past performance, is Argentina, Laos, Cambodia, Viet-Nam, North Korea, China and a host of other small nations. Do these millennials even know what socialism is? Im not talking about what the textbooks say it is, I mean are they really looking at true socialism?

Here are some examples of what socialism has given the world: Bergen-Belsen, Sobibor, Auschwitz-Birkenau, Dachau, Ravensbruck, Majdanek, and Treblinka. These were gifts to the world from the German National Socialist Party starting in 1933 and continued till late 1945. Along with these gifts they gave us at least 25 million deaths in Europe as the world tried to stop the spread of Socialism.

The camps listed here are just a small part of the 100-plus camps operated by the Third Reich during WWII with the desired outcome of exterminating the undesirable people of Europe. Under True Socialism or Progressivism, the government owns all forms of production, and tells you where to work and how much you will earn. It rations out everything. There is no free market. What you have is the equal distribution of misery.

Under real socialism, this is the true ideology. Once you can no longer produce for the good of the whole, you are useless and need to be eliminated. Your school has done a lousy job of educating you. Learn the truth about socialism and all other forms of government of which none are perfect. Read about George Bernard Shaw, Karl Marx. Learn what Joseph Stalin did to his people. Chairman Mao.

Any government big enough to give you everything you want, is also big enough to take everything you have.

James Lowder

Dunsmuir

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Letters to the editor: Socialism - News - Siskiyou Daily News

April 27, 1972

FULFIL DREAM OF

SHER-E-BANGLA

Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman calls upon the Bangalee nation to build a socialist Shonar Bangla as dreamed by Sher-e-Bangla AK Fazlul Huq. In a message to the nation on the 10th death anniversary of the great leader, who fought for the economic emancipation of Bangalee peasantry, Bangabandhu says that Sher-e-Bangla's political acumen, great personality and strength of character will always inspire the Bangalee nation.

The prime minister further says that Fazlul Huq was a true Bangalee in his words and deeds, through which he carved out a niche in the hearts of the peasants of Bengal. "In the history of Bangladesh, Sher-e-Bangla AK Fazlul Huq was the pioneer among those who fought for the cause of the oppressed people in rural Bengal," he adds.

"While we observe his death anniversary for the first time in the sovereign and independent Bangladesh, we can say that he believed in our principles of democracy, secularism, socialism and nationalism. On this auspicious day let us pledge to build the Shonar Bangla on the principle of socialism," reads the message of Bangabandhu.

BANGABANDHU'S STERN WARNING TO EXPLOITERS

Bangabandhu reaffirms today that socialism must be established in the country to provide the teeming millions with food, clothing and shelter. Addressing a seminar organised by the Awami League on the 10th death anniversary of Sher-e-Bangla, the prime minister makes it clear that if any obstruction is put in the way of the establishment of socialism, it will be removed. He warns those elements who are conspiring against the policy of nationalisation that if they do not desist soon from their evil-mongering, they might be put behind bars.

The prime minister wonders how some people can forget the blood which still stains the country. How can people still indulge in profiteering, bribery and corruption? He calls upon all to change their mentality.

He further says that a section of workers is forcing the administrators of nationalised industries to pay them money. The workers, he says, forget that these industries belong to seven-and-a-half crore people of the country, not only to them. Turning to those who are amassing fortunes, Bangabandhu asks them to take a lesson from the fate of the Muslim Leaguers. People will not tolerate them, he warns. "I shall remain with the people," he declares. "I have received the love and affection of the people and I don't want anything more."

SOURCES: April 28, 1972 issues of Bangladesh Observer, Dainik Bangla and Ittefaq

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Build Shonar Bangla on the principle of socialism - The Daily Star