How can we make a "political revolution"? ***Socialist Progressive Group ***

[TBF]

"Today, 85 of the wealthiest people in this world own more wealth than the bottom half of the world's population, over 3 billion people."

Danny Katch 11-4-15

"READY TO start a political revolution?" That's the cheerful call to arms greeting visitors to the presidential campaign home page of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. The Sanders campaign for the Democratic Party nomination started as a long shot last spring, but has snowballed into a credible, if still unlikely, threat to frontrunner Hillary Clinton.

Clinton had been widely viewed as the only serious candidate, not because she's so appealing to voters, but because of her deep connections and support among billionaires, banks and pharmaceutical companies.

Sanders, by contrast, has gained a significant following precisely because so many people are frustrated with a political class that is obviously in the bag for the 1 Percent--epitomized both by corporate Democrats like Clinton and by the various Republican lackeys for the Koch Brothers ...

One lesson we shouldn't take from these situations is that revolution isn't possible. What's needed is a thoroughgoing revolution, more so than Bernie Sanders envisions--one that doesn't just replace the political leaders or even whole regimes carrying out unjust policies, but that replaces the unjust economic system underlying them.

More here: http://socialistworker.org/2015/11/04/how-can-we-make-a-political-revolution

[upaloopa]

1. Aren't revolutions typically bloody and violent?

So we replace the oppression of the 1% with the repression of your revolutionaries?

[TBF]

2. You are in the Socialist group

please read our rules before commenting further:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10245634

[Gregorian]

3. One of the myths is that revolution has to be violent.

I've been misunderstood when saying we need an evolution, not a revolution. What I mean is when people are educated, they will chose the proper path. When uneducated, they'll just fight to get rid of what is hurting them. That's how the US was created. We split, and fought.

Sadly, we operate in reality. There are many greedy and controlling people who can't think outside of their own wishes. Those days are behind us now, with the access to unlimited information, and the collective mind it has created. The rich won't go quietly, but the poor outnumber them by magnitudes.

The answers are simple, and if united, very possible to accomplish. When no one will pick up the arms the rich have provided, they'll have no one to fight against those who want to work for a healthier society.

It's like trying to fix a lion's broken leg. It'll fight you to the death to avoid being put in a cast.

[BlueJazz]

4. It's just a pipe dream and I'll be the first to admit it. My fantasy plan is for workers to bond...

...together, tell the powers that be.> Here's the deal, you either change the structure or we quit working (here in the US).
No, we don't mean for a few days...we mean as long as you continue this ridiculous system we stay at home.
You say we'll starve? Possible but let me tell you this.> Nobody to run the stores, no sales, no deliveries...nothing.
Do you, as a supposedly smart rich person, understand what will happen to the Stock Market, bonds, the price of everything, the economy?.
The Dollar will crash after a few days, those investments you prize so much will fall like the rain in a Florida thunderstorm.
You might say "You'll lose money also" That's true but don't you see it now?...You've taken almost all the money so take a wild guess who is going to lose THOUSANDS of times more money than the populace.
You think this over and tell us what you're going to do.

[TBF]

7. It wasn't so long ago that it actually worked -

at least to some degree. I am nearly half a century old (!) and remember painting strike signs with my dad. That was back in the early 1970s ... and the unions were strong in the midwest (we were within a few hours of Chicago). Not only would workers strike, but it was not very cool to be a scab (and sometimes it was even dangerous), and folks would not cross the picket lines.

It seems like that was a very long time ago given today's environment.

[Maedhros]

5. Step One: Admit that we have a problem.

Namely, that the Democratic Party as currently constituted does not want what we want. At this point, the biggest impediment to positive, progressive political change is the emotional attachment of progressives to the Democratic Party. That emotional attachment leads to voting for non-progressive candidates out of misplaced loyalty.

If we want the Democratic Party to be effective, it needs some tough love from us.

[rogerashton]

6. All the same, I'm with Bernie

at this stage, at least.

I think the political revolution has to be the first step. That doesn't mean just replacing the personnel. It means changing the process by which the personnel are determined. And that means uniting the working people, all colors, genders, jobs, to make the Democratic Party into a real labor party.

Of course, labor parties can be bought off, as in Britain. Come to that, Communist parties can be bought off, as in the USSR (remember them?) and China. The movement cannot stop with a labor party, but it has to start there.

The reason is that, as the OP quotes, the capitalist system has to be replaced with a system that serves the working class. But that cannot be done overnight. There has to be time for trial and error and growth. All of the parties I mentioned above made mistakes, and only some were corrected.

To Upaloopa: this process would be bloody and violent only if the bosses make it so by staging what Marx called a "pro-slavery rebellion." That did happen in Spain in the 1930s. As a Fabian socialist, my first priority would be to avoid civil violence if possible, and it seems to me that the way to do that is first, to defend majority rule within our routine political process, and second, to move gradually toward a socialist system by making the changes that reduce the threat of violent conflict while moving toward a society without class distinctions.

To Bluejazz -- if we have to go outside the routine political process, historical experience tells us that nonviolent revolution is more likely to achieve its objectives than violent revolution. Your "pipe dream" of the Social General Strike was the granddaddy of nonviolent revolutionary movements. In practice, though, the successful nonviolent revolutions have been nationalist, rather than social. What the threat of a social general strike can do is to serve as the second line of defense of majority rule through a labor party. The first line, of course, is at the ballot box. Love your screenname, by the way.

To Maedhros: The trouble with "tough love," particularly in 2016, is that it is likely to result in a movement in the direction of fascism that will make violence more likely. The Republicans are that bad. So I think we need to address our fellow democrats not with a threat but with a promise: with us they can win.

[TBF]

8. Very nice - thank you for your comments. nt