[lbo-talk] [Pen-l] Marxist IQ

[Robert Naiman]

1. This is kind of amusing.
2. I rarely read CP stuff and I haven't in years. But this seems to me a
little bit more creative than CP stuff I remember from the past. Maybe they
are improving.
3. I think it's kind of sad that while the CP is capable of acknowledging
and seeing it as important that there are different forces within the
Democratic Party, it's not capable of acknowledging and seeing it as
important that there are different forces inside the Tea Party. A
significant fraction of the Tea Party really does have a principled
commitment to civil liberties and is willing to fight for that commitment.
That could have real consequences in terms of reforming the war on drugs,
reducing incarceration, reducing war, and so on. Why won't/can't the CP
acknowledge that?
4. The fact that the CP can so easily and prominently have such a logically
inconsistent position because "that's the line" would be enough in itself
to make me despair of the idea that they could have any significant
positive impact over the long run. And every other "Marxist group" in the
U.S. that I am aware of is basically the same with respect to this key
issue. At core, they are unprincipled, they might be good on something now
but bad on it later, it's not flowing from reality or principle, it's just
a handful of people in a room hammering out a line based on their personal
prejudices.

Robert Naiman
Policy Director
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org
naiman at justforeignpolicy.org
(202) 448-2898 x1

On Sun, Aug 31, 2014 at 6:59 PM, Charles Brown <cb31450 at gmail.com> wrote:


> http://cpusa.org/marxist-iq
>
> Marxist IQ
>
>
> by: Politicalaffairs.net
> August 30 2014
>
> tags: Marxism, labor, trade unions, working class
>
> 1. The massive export of capital and jobs from the U.S. since the
> 1980s is the result of:
>
> a. The high cost of labor due to the unions;
> b. The huge increase in income and corporate taxes;
> c. The Reagan and post-Reagan administration policies of deregulation
> of business and banking, detaxation of corporations and the wealthy,
> while continuing to subsidize capital with every conceivable bailout;
> d. The high costs of regulation.
>
> 2. The trade union movement in the 1980s failed to effectively resist
> the export of capital because:
>
> a. Its leadership was committed to socialism;
> b. Its leadership engaged in militant strike actions;
> c. Its leadership was divided between militants and moderates;
> d. Its leadership had followed since 1947 the anti-communist Cold War
> status quo and policy of class and government collaboration and
> concessions and had no understanding or experience in organizing
> workers for mass struggle.
>
> 3. The Democratic Party as a political party in recent decades may
> best be described as
>
> a. No different than the Republicans;
> b. A militant peoples party;
> c. A divided party; part of which seeks to promote ruling class
> policies, and another part which seeks to promote labor and pro-people
> policies;
> d. The first party of big business and the rich.
>
> 4. The Obama administration has been the subject of extreme attacks by
> all the forces of reaction because:
>
> a. The new forces that the Obama campaign brought into politics in
> 2008 was seen as a serious threat to the maintenance of the Reagan and
> post Reagan status quo;
> b. The fact that Obama during and after the campaign condemned the
> Reagan and post Reagan economic policies as failures and called for
> new progressive policies;
> c. The fact that Obama, as an African American, threatened to
> undermine racist ideology which had served as a central weapon to
> divide the people through American history;
> d. All of the above.
>
> 5. The tea party of recent years may best be seen as:
>
> a. A recycled version of the far right funded lavishly by the most
> reactionary sectors of the capitalist class and sold through mass
> media in an uncritical manner, in the equivalent of infomercials;
> b. A group motivated by libertarian, pro civil liberties and pro civil
> rights principles;
> c. A group strongly committed to individual freedom of conscience and
> the strict separation of church and state;
> d. A group fighting equally against the power of big government, big
> business and big labor.
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