^^^^^ CB: Creativity is not an inherent virtue in political thinking on the issues discussed here.
^^^^^^^^^^
> 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?
^^^^^^^^^^ CB: Yea, but all the tea Republicans are part of a fascist coalition , so it's kind of disturbing that you think they should get some kind of acknowledgement. The Confederates probably had some decent people in their numbers , too, but they made the horrendous choice to throw in with white supremacists. Same with tea partiers who have some civil liberty .
Tea Party civil "liberties" are things like Rand Paul thinking entrepreneurs should have the "liberty" not to sell to Black people
^^^^^^^
> 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.
^^^^^^^^^ CB: Being opposed to the whole tea Party is pretty logically consistent. You don't see it because the Communist Party has a different logic than you do.
>
>
> 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.
>> _______________________________________________
>> pen-l mailing list
>> pen-l at lists.csuchico.edu
>> https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
>>
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk