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Play it again, Sam

By Owen Paine on Monday October 18, 2010 10:00 PM

Nerf-Stalinist Uber-commissar Sam Webb of the dear old CPUSA -- yes, somebody still has the letterhead -- responds to people like us:

"Some voters on our side of the struggle are taking a powder on the elections. They claim that President Obama raised their hopes as a candidate and let them down as a president. They expected bold action on the economic crisis, but it didn't happen. The stimulus didn't go far enough. Ditto for health care legislation.

The scale and pace of change has been too slow. Too many people are out of work, out of affordable health care, and out of their homes. Meanwhile, their riff goes, bloodletting continues in Afghanistan, corporations are sitting on nearly $2 trillion of idle money, profits are up, inequality is growing, and tax cuts for the wealthy are draining our treasury and driving up the national deficit."

Seems Sam's in the same basic reality frame we're in, eh? Apart from that fatuous deficit-hawkery, of course, which sounds mighty strange in a Commie's mouth.

But dang, then comes this nerfy stuff:

"The question is: is it enough to stay home? I say no for three reasons."

To begin with the most obvious, the elections' impact on people's lives. Even though the size of the stimulus was inadequate and a public option was missing in the new health care law, both bills bring a measure of relief to millions of people. And as a friend of mine keeps reminding me, it may make only an inch of difference, but a lot of people live on that inch."

So big Sam concludes that hypomeliorism -- that marginal inch -- is worth going to the polls for! Because:
"that inch of difference (things like unemployment insurance extensions, food stamps, relief for local and state governments, modest jobs and infrastructure programs, readjustment of tax policy in favor of working people, funding for education, a real fight over military appropriations for Afghanistan) will probably vanish -- along with hope for more far-reaching measures. Furthermore, "austerity" will become the watchword, the pressures to weaken Social Security and Medicare will grow, and the economic pain for working people is likely to get much worse."
Ain't that reason enough for you bloody rag-wavers! But there's more reasons that comes the little people's way, should the ballot box take a wrong turn at the upcoming intersection. Call it a one-way ticket to Doomsville:
".. A Republican victory at the polls on Nov. 2-defined as winning a majority of seats in the House-would be the opening act of a horror show, culminating in the Republican right reclaiming full dominance of Congress and the White House in 2012."
Jeeez, Louise. So we lose that inch, Sam. Ohbummer is the sine-qua-non Atlas able to hold on to our marginal inch?

No; there comes more quantity-morphs-into-quality:

"For the far right, electoral success in the current elections and then in 2012 is the eye of the needle through which it must pass in order to radically transform the country to the advantage of the most reactionary section of monopoly capital and its allies."
Yikes! The Far Right, Sam! The honest-to-Benito far right!

[Stop snickering, Paine.]

"The claim that the two parties of capitalism are indistinguishable is a fool's notion..."
And if you want more reasons, here's reason three:
"A Republican victory this fall will not simply weaken the president and his party, but likely demoralize and take the wind out of the sails of the loose coalition that emerged in 2008 and after a post-election hiatus is finding its stride again, as evidenced by the Oct. 2 rally in the nation's capital."
"The nation's capital"? This is a Commie talking? Commies have fallen on hard times, it appears.
"People act on the basis of their feelings. The mobilization of people in the post-election period will become more difficult."
That ends the body of the piece; but then, as a mopping-up operation, big Sam turns on us malcontents!
"Of course, some people are so deeply cynical that nothing could persuade them to vote.Then there are a few others who will sit these elections out for ideological reasons. They argue that participation in the two-party system spreads illusions about the Democratic Party, delaying the formation of an anti-capitalist alternative."
Here's what we come across as through the nerf-Stalinist inverted telescope:
"In their view, the elections are simply a contest between two parties with no differences of any importance; thus, it makes little, if any, difference who wins-Bush or Gore, Bush or Kerry, McCain or Obama, candidates of the right or candidates of the center and left of center."
Yup, that about gets it, Sam.
"Any even temporary and tactical alliance with the Democratic Party-well, it's worse than the plague, to be avoided at all costs. Support for a Democratic candidate as a "lesser evil" is tantamount to craven political bankruptcy and opportunism.

What is to be done? It's simple, say the advocates of this point of view: make a "strategic break" with the two-party system."

"But there is an oh-so slight hitch that serious progressive and left-thinking people can't afford to overlook. A "strategic break" makes sense only if millions of people and their organizations are ready to march out of the Democratic Party into a labor/people-based political party, but guess what? They aren't...

The rise of right-wing extremism reinforces this sentiment. Broad unity, not division, not attacking people's leaders as the "super leftists" love to do (they see these leaders as the main reason that people stay put in the Democratic Party -- how simple-minded) is the blood that flows through the veins of the people's movement at this moment."

The Popular Front, New Deal II version! When New Deal II is more like New Deal divided by two.

But I'll give this avuncular chief geef his due. Comes now the latest russet sage of Union Square at full throttle:

"Politics is a contested, complex, and impure process. There are waves and breaks -- progressive and reactionary -- in continuity to be sure, but in between there are longer periods in which the struggle doesn't soar to new heights or sink to new depths, but still is consequential to the breaks that do come. In 2008, politics, economics and mass thinking became unhinged from their old moorings and a political turn, albeit partial, occurred. Since then the completion of this turn has become a more protracted and difficult process than many, including myself, thought."
There's always next year, eh, Sam?

Finale rally line:

"The elections in less than three weeks, for good or bad, will mark a new phase in this process. No one with an iota of common sense will sit it out. Shoot yourself in the foot if you like, but don't do it on Nov. 2 because the buckshot will hit the rest of us!"
Really, this is the sort of thing that makes one look back on the Gus Hall days with a certain nostalgia. Monosyllabically-named Sam makes monosyllabically-named Gus look like a world-historical thinker.

Comments (17)

MJS:

I dunno, Owen. He sounds a lot like you, actually. The only base he doesn't have covered is the defense of the suburban householder. But then I didn't read the whole essay.

Al Schumann:

He appears to be biased against rifles and pistols, the traditional tools for shooting yourself in the foot. I find him completely unacceptable for other reasons, of course. But the contempt for tradition certainly doesn't help.

Despite the obvious dead horse meat being offered, I wholeheartedly support this effort by op-san to get this website out of the "anarchist" puddle-of-mirrors...

The CPUSA has at last found a true proletarian function!

3 che.......

hapa:

"plus the democrats plan to hire 4, maybe 5 million people before june."

op:

"There are waves and breaks -- progressive and reactionary -- in continuity ...
in between there are longer periods in which the struggle doesn't soar to new heights or sink to new depths...."
none will contest this
however here is the scorpions tail:

"...but still "
(these longer periods of near non flux are)
"..consequential to the breaks that do come."

i guess they must determine the height and or direction of the breaks eh ??

this gets hard to connect to the great curve of Clio's march to social progress
i guess the zero line is drawn in
and the length of the curve segments of Clio
above the zero line is progress quantity
and the length of the curve segment
below the zero line is regress quantity
but how the class forces tug of war
moves the line up or down ...

gets hard to figure

old sam johnson
--a real hero of our site fuhrer here--
held to a rough and ready notion of over all quantity of well being
--or whatever---
where highs off set lows and ...yup
nothing much mattered
to the long run move
toward "the day of judgement"

whether one went thru smooth
or fluxy times ....
other then the feel of it

FB:

"I wholeheartedly support this effort by op-san to get this website out of the "anarchist" puddle-of-mirrors..."

Aw, MD, you're sick of children's hour already? But we're only 45 minutes in and I already have another episode ready to go!

Maybe I should just can it though, if only to save MJS the facepalming and ruing-the-day-he-gave-me-a-login.

op:

mjs
i'd rather hear us knock him down
then suggest he sounds like me
and leave it at that

and sound like me indeed does
or i wouldn't slap him up here
at this totalizing sheet
attacking him marginally to taunt you all ..marginally

sam's like me
even more so if one got
to inter-act with him in camera
i suspect

--- ps the fearless quill in hand editor
in a key redaction
skillfully
noticed the one real discrepancy
betwixt me et he
this idiocy :
"tax cuts for the wealthy are draining our treasury and driving up the national deficit"
which i attribute to Sam's

"craven
political economic bankruptcy
and
class agitprop opportunism " ----


where sam and i differ

the notion he wants to imply he holds
that coming conditions won't overwhelm
existing reactions

ie demoralization is a key

or
"People act on the basis of their feelings. The mobilization of people in the post-election period will become more difficult."

demoralization as a key is bunk so far as i see it

an alibi
for poor organization work
disfunctional mass line
wrong strategy and tactics
cadre feeklessness
and senile leadership

the tides rising and falling
produce the feelings that correspond..no doubt

but as the tide rises... the spirits lift

(vide USA wage class 33-36)

progressive wage class cadre
need to organize small but clear wins
on the job site front now
while groping for an over all strategy
when the tide turns

this is possible
this is even happening

keep the powder dry
build cells
inter link
and prepare for the rising

if it doesn't come next year
or two years from now or five years .....
it doesn't come

Clio's grand guignol isn't staged
with any of us specifically in mind
as main protagonists

we serve even as we sprepare
yes stand( at attention )
and wait

stand at the ready

of course of course of course

all the rest is flowering our own mass grave
or damning its fellow occupants

op:


another shrewd roundly filled out
redaction by perry white:

"Really, this is the sort of thing that makes one look back on the Gus Hall days with a certain nostalgia. Monosyllabically-named Sam makes monosyllabically-named Gus look like a world-historical thinker."

gus vs sam ???

i'll take sam

gus had a dinty moore faudulence to him

sam is the real
100% nurf product
and marketed as such

op:

actual first draft of history
worts and all :


play it again sam

nerf stalinist ubercommisar sam webb responds to among other ilks us SMBIVAers

http://peoplesworld.org/sitting-out-the-elections-think-again/


"Some voters on our side of the struggle are taking a powder on the elections. They claim that President Obama raised their hopes as a candidate and let them down as a president.
They expected bold action on the economic crisis, but it didn't happen. The stimulus didn't go far enough. Ditto for health care legislation. The scale and pace of change has been too slow - too many people are out of work, out of affordable health care, and out of their homes.
Meanwhile, their riff goes, bloodletting continues in Afghanistan, corporations are sitting on nearly $2 trillion of idle money, profits are up, inequality is growing, and tax cuts for the wealthy are draining our treasury and driving up the national deficit."

well seems sam 's in the same basic reality frame we're in eh ??...but dang then comes this nerfy stuff...

".. but the question is: is it enough to stay home? I say no for three reasons."

reason one :

"To begin with the most obvious, the elections' impact on people's lives. Even though the size of the stimulus was inadequate and a public option was missing in the new health care law, both bills bring a measure of relief to millions of people. And as a friend of mine keeps reminding me, it may make only an inch of difference, but a lot of people live on that inch."
sez
big sam
hypomeliorism ..that marginal inch...is worth going to the polls for !!!!

why ???..well cause

" that inch of difference (things like unemployment insurance extensions, food stamps, relief for local and state governments, modest jobs and infrastructure programs, readjustment of tax policy in favor of working people, funding for education, a real fight over military appropriations for Afghanistan) will probably vanish - along with hope for more far-reaching measures.
Furthermore, "austerity" will become the watchword, the pressures to weaken Social Security and Medicare will grow, and the economic pain for working people is likely to get much worse."

ain't that reason enough for you bloddy rag wavers !!!..but there's more reasons that comes the little people's way as a result of this bad turn at the ballot box fork in the road
rushing at us ... errr call it a one way ticket to doomsville

reason two :

".. A Republican victory at the polls on Nov. 2 - defined as winning a majority of seats in the House - would be the opening act of a horror show, culminating in the Republican right reclaiming full dominance of Congress and the White House in 2012."

sheeez louise so we lose that inch eh sam ohbummer is thethe only sine qua non atlas able to hold on to our marginal inch ??

no there comes more quantity morphs into quality

"For the far right, electoral success in the current elections and then in 2012 is the eye of the needle through which it must past in order to radically transform the country to the advantage of the most reactionary section of monopoly capital and its allies"

yikes !!! the far right sam the honest to benito far right !!!!
...
------ "stop snickering paine !!"-----

" The claim that the two parties of capitalism are indistinguishable is a fool's notion..."
and if you want more reasons...
reason three:

" a Republican victory this fall will not simply weaken the president and his party, but likely demoralize and take the wind out of the sails of the loose coalition that emerged in 2008 and after a post-election hiatus is finding its stride again, as evidenced by the Oct. 2 rally in the nation's capital."

and why care given objective conditions ??
well because "people act on the basis of their feelings. The mobilization of people in the post-election period will become more difficult."
that ends the body of the peice

but here as a mopping up operation at the end big sam turns on us smbiva motley !!

"Of course, some people are so deeply cynical that nothing could persuade them to vote.Then there are a few others who will sit these elections out for ideological reasons. They argue that participation in the two-party system spreads illusions about the Democratic Party, delaying the formation of an anti-capitalist alternative."

here's what we come across as thru the nerf stalinist telescope :

"In their (our) view, the elections are simply a contest between two parties with no differences of any importance; thus, it makes little, if any, difference who wins - Bush or Gore, Bush or Kerry, McCain or Obama, candidates of the right or candidates of the center and left of center."
\yup that about gets it sam

"Any even temporary and tactical alliance with the Democratic Party - well, it's worse than the plague, to be avoided at all costs. Support for a Democratic candidate as a "lesser evil" is tantamount to craven political bankruptcy and opportunism.
What is to be done? It's simple, say the advocates of this point of view: make a "strategic break" with the two-party system. "
yup

"But (paine) there is an oh-so slight hitch that serious progressive and left-thinking people can't afford to overlook.
A "strategic break" makes sense only if millions of people and their organizations are ready to march out of the Democratic Party into a labor/people-based political party, but guess what? They aren't..... the rise of right-wing extremism reinforces this sentiment. Broad unity, not division, not attacking people's leaders as the "super leftists" love to do (they see these leaders as the main reason that people stay put in the Democratic Party - how simple-minded) is the blood that flows through the veins of the people's movement at this moment."
the popular front new deal II version !!!! when new deal II is more like new deal divided by two

but i'll give this avuncularchief geef his due ......comes now the latest russet sage of union square at full throttle :

"Politics is a contested, complex, and impure process. There are waves and breaks - progressive and reactionary - in continuity to be sure, but in between there are longer periods in which the struggle doesn't soar to new heights or sink to new depths, but still is consequential to the breaks that do come.
In 2008, politics, economics and mass thinking became unhinged from their old moorings and a political turn, albeit partial, occurred. Since then the completion of this turn has become a more protracted and difficult process than many, including myself, thought."

wait until next time eh sam

finale rally lines :

"The elections in less than three weeks, for good or bad, will mark a new phase in this process. No one with an iota of common sense will sit it out. Shoot yourself in the foot if you like, but don't do it on Nov. 2 because the buckshot will hit the rest of us!"

Jeezus, Paine, you're right; the ol' CP really has fallen on hard times, for Comrade Chairman to be spouting this tired old line of bullshit.

He actually sounds like your standard garden-variety Pwog here:

Has the DP capitulated to the Right -- and even enabled them -- time and again?

Yes, but...

Has the DP sold out its "base" on healthcare reform, financial reform, Afghanistan, civil liberties, same-sex marriage, drug policy, offshore oil drilling?

Yes, but...

Has the DP shown itself to be nothing but a bunch of craven, exploitive opportunists once again?

Yes, but...

Has the DP spent its entire tenure crapping all over its Left constituencies, throwing them under the proverbial Bus at every opportunity, basically beating the Left like a baby seal -- and then, when the Left's decided it's had enough and decides to stay home next "Election" Day, does the DP "leadership" go on TV to pitch a hissy fit and insult the Left to its face?

Yes, but... we have to vote Democratic, or else the awful, evil Rethuglicans will take over!

Yes, but...yes, but...yes, but...yes, but.

Looks like the CP's turned into a bunch of standard-issue yesbutniks.


------
Btw, Paine...not to be too much of a pedantic old film geek, here, but what Bogart actually says in that scene is "Play it, Sam -- you played it for her, you can play it for me!"

op:

see
that's a champ

flug nutz keeps on punchin'
no injury no foul

the guy's great calls em as he sees em

his hide's tough
his message clear
his heart soft

god's speed mike ...you bastid

op:

"Dear UCubed Leaders and Jobs Activists:

If November’s midterm elections go as expected, here's the reality check:

Tier V? Not happening.

Extended unemployment benefits? Forgetaboutit!

COBRA discounts? When pigs fly.

Foreclosure moratorium? Right after hell freezes over.

Food stamp expansion? Tougher eligibility rules are far more likely.

So let's stop kidding ourselves. Elections have consequences "

op:

"America’s unemployed and idled millions can vote against their real tormentors – the Republicans and some Democrats who voted over 7,300 times against the jobless and for their corporate allies who triggered this Grave Recession"

bite back http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNN0jL4xUE4

Lajany Otum:

Looks like the CP's turned into a bunch of standard-issue yesbutniks.

Last century's news I thought.

Anonymous:

Haven't Communists (with a capital c) always been basically reactionaries? During the Spanish Civil War they where bitterly opposed to the CNT, POUM and other proletarian militias* and (at least rhetorically) committed to defending the Monarchy. For example.

*None other than AC's father Claude Cockburn, writing as Frank Pitcairn, took the opportunity to libel POUM in the Daily Worker--as Orwell recalls in Homage to Catalonia.

op:

anon
spain's CP 36-39 and
the POUM
claude S
two moments in comintern history
that might deserve a bit more detailed
and informed investigation

then ugly george O
gave either

juan:

french cp/cgt
w/degaulle
1968

over and over we
ve seen grenelle

so it goes as
for decades

the capital system
has expanded\ moved beyond limits

to its practical
survival

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