Monday, September 26, 2016

Tweedledum-Tweedledee and the Lesser Evil

Tonight is the first televised debate between Clinton and Trump. The unabashed apologists for the capitalist system have resurrected the discredited theory of the “lesser evil.” Trump must be defeated at all costs! To lend credence to their “lesser evil” line, the “progressives” loudly declare that Trump is a fascist to scare voters into line. They allege voting for Trump is equivalent to being a “Putin lover.”

Under the pressure of capitalism, politics converge. That does not mean all the political parties are identical or are becoming identical but that they merely increasingly tend to act in the same way in essential respects, where fundamental needs of the system are concerned. Supposed progressives are obliged to make use of the repressive measures which the conservatives advocate because the maintenance of the system demands it. Lesser Evils behave at every important juncture exactly like the Greater Evils, and sometimes even worse. Capitalists use elections as a “mandate”. Your vote does count in elections. It becomes a mandate for the crimes of the next four years. The lesser evil has proven wrong in practice and we are tired of being blackmailed into voting for enemies of the world’s people.

Too often the media appraises candidates on the basis of what they say about themselves, not by their actual deeds and real class role. For any organization claiming to be socialist to endorse a capitalist party is a shameful betrayal of principles they allegedly stand for. The reason real socialists never support candidates of capitalist parties is that there is nothing more dangerous for the workers than endorsing a class enemy. The Socialist Party seeks that fellow workers become conscious of themselves as a class and of their power in society. Genuine socialists understand that political consciousness begins with the recognition of the fundamental class division: the working class versus the ruling capitalist class. Success demands the working-class to be independence from all capitalist parties.  The Socialist Party is for socialism, not only in the United States, or Great Britain. We are for world socialism as the only way to abolish all the evils of modern class society. The crucial social problems which prevailed prior to the election of Hilarity Clinton will continue to prevail once she is elected. That is why we stand for socialism now and that is why we dissent so vigorously from the view that a socialist opposition to Clinton makes one a “tool of Trump.” The working class should not support any of the presidential candidates as neither of them benefits the working people of the United States. Their policies differ only in minor respects. The “lesser evil” fallacy serves only to keep people chained to the duopoly of the Democratic/Republican political system – Cholera or the Plague. The Socialist Party is intent upon using the electoral arena for its long-term struggle for socialism, not to gain immediate amelioration by a reform platform of palliatives. The ruling elite uses the line of opting for the lesser of two evils as a way to divert and detour the working class into a dead-end, a way to politically disarm people and demoralize them, a way to keep the working class chained to the treadmill of capitalist politics. By not voting working people will register their rejection of pro-capitalist candidates. The enormous success of the lesser-evil political system is in getting about half the people simply not to vote and forcing those who do to vote, in favour of what they oppose.

It is no coincidence that the same politicians who supported Clinton foreign policy aggressions also accepted devastating cuts in domestic social programs too that proceeded to dismantle a thin “safety net,” and remove substantial past gains won by the poorest workers. This happened because the “lesser evils” did little to stop it. The Damnocrats are just as driven to cut back the gains of the working class as the Republicans; they just use a somewhat different approach. And they get away with their attacks more easily than the Republicans because they are the “lesser evil” and the unions and the  liberal lobby groups decline to organize an opposition to the Democrats, less the “greater evil” gets into office


 We want a new party, an anti-capitalist party, an anti-war party, a party for the environment and mankind. We want a word socialist party. The Democrats and Republicans are in the pockets of big interests and cannot be reformed. We must start now to build a party that will speak for the workers. We cannot wait for ‘ideal’ conditions which never come. We believe capitalism must be overthrown. Socialist revolution is the only way to end capitalism.

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