babyhueypnewton posted:

What is unique about the black labor aristocracy? 1. It is tied to the government rather than the private sector. This largely explains the devotion to the democrats and bureaucratic spoils system which Clinton perfected. 2. It is insecure. The white middle class will always have first access to the capital and the black middle class will always be the first to fall to austerity. does this mean that black as the black middle class is reproletarianized they will adopt radical politics or that they will gain social fascist characteristics to defend their privilege? I think experience shows the latter and this is the argument I am making. 3. Labor aristocracy has not spread to the black population as a whole. Not only do many black people remain impoverished, the existence of the black middle class is dependent on their role in regulating this population on behalf of white capitalism. This gives black politics a unique character, probably closer to Engels and Lenin's original concept of 'labor aristocracy' rather than the third-worldist concept that applies to the entire nation.

The existence of a black middle class is indisputable, the questions are how significant is it and what are the politics that form from its class consciousness. Well I think BLM and pro-Hillary apologia gives us the concrete answer, we just need to historicize it. To pretend black politics remain potentially capable of a new Black Panther Party (despite the existence of multiple new Black Panther Parties) is to be delusional.

so finally we get to something actually material. so there exists a black middle class, and the questions are what it means. first, its not like this class is somehow more particularly coherent in the 2010s than, say, the 90s. what's unique now is that the willingness of capital to support a middle class of any kind is decaying. so if anything movements like BLM represent the crisis of the existence of this class, with bourgeois elements that are promoted by the bourgeois media as well as proletarian elements that dont get put in the media spotlight. as it stands now, you're probably right that a group like the black panthers couldn't exist today but i think the important thing is to be conscious of the fact that black people do face murder and superexploitation by capital as a result of white supremacy being baked into the heart of capitalism and that as the rate of profit continues to fall and capital becomes less and less willing to accept compromise for the sake of propaganda about an equitable society you can bet that movements like the panthers will start to get stronger. (its not like they dont exist today, its more that they dont have the ideological pull that they would have once the illusion that an equitable society can be achieved under capitalism breaks down further)

getfiscal posted:

I've seen people say that the aim of Sanders now is to get as many delegates to the DNC so that they can engage in battles over the platform. I'm sure at least a few of you here remember what happened the last time there was a floor battle over the platform at the DNC.

google seems to being saying that the last brokered convention was in 1952, how old are you donald?

Trump would have a particularly hard time rallying the U.S. people in general and young people in particular for war. To have Trump as “commander and chief” could be disastrous for the U.S. military whose rank and file consists increasingly of soldiers of Hispanic origin. There are also a growing number of Muslims in the U.S. army, and Trump with his obvious racism would hardly be popular among African American soldiers, who also make up a disproportionately large percentage of the military, subject as they are to the “economic draft.”

A “socialist” Sanders administration would be in a far better position to lure the younger generation into war. Many young people would be willing to give the socialist “Bernie” a chance and would be far more reluctant to hit the streets to oppose a war in fear of strengthening the “socialist” president’s reactionary opponents, than they would if Trump were president or even Hillary Clinton. While Wall Street would prefer a more reliable and seasoned agent such as Hillary Clinton in the White House, Sanders, unlike Trump, would not necessarily be a disaster for Wall Street. Under certain conditions—assuming the now 74-year-old Sanders’ health holds up—he might be the best possible president that Wall Street could have in the coming period.

Therefore, we shouldn’t exaggerate the tendencies for U.S. politics to be “Germanized.” Sanders is no August Bebel, Karl Liebneckt or Rosa Luxemburg, and Trump, whatever his personal ambitions might be, is far from being a new Adolf Hitler on the verge of establishing a personal dictatorship. The U.S. is not a defeated imperialist power like Germany was in November 1918 or 1923, not to speak of Russia in October 1917. Unlike Germany in 1933, the U.S. remains very much the center of a powerful and dangerous world empire. Unlike post-World War I Germany, the U.S. communist movement on one side and the real U.S. fascists on the other remain very much on the margins of U.S. politics.

https://critiqueofcrisistheory.wordpress.com/the-u-s-elections-and-the-decline-of-empire/

tpaine posted:

tulsi gabbard.

The first transaction from Hillary for America to Hillary Rodham Clinton came on April 13, 2015 in the amount of $74,042. This transaction was filed under ‘Payroll & Benefits’ with a separate payment of $1,488 for ‘Employee Benefits’ that same day, according to FEC filings. On April 14, just one day later, $744 went to Clinton marked as employee benefits.

as if we needed confirmation.