I want to overview the many situations going on in the United States at this time. There is a lot to get to so lets jump right in.
The Oregon Situation;
Essentially what happened is that a rancher was using public land to graze his livestock and when this was discovered the united states government told him he could not do such. So naturally conservative "market de-regulaters" answered the call to stand around in the snow carrying guns and fighting tyranny. From the beginning the militia started spouting empty rhetoric. They obviously do not live under tyranny as they're allowed to own the guns they're "fighting" with. These militia's first words to the media was that all public land should be opened to mining, logging and grazing. My first thought when I heard these people talking was; "which corporation is financially backing y'all." I think to most people, especially socialist, it should be obvious that there is no basis for a left wing support of this militia. I mean these are the same groups who supported Cliven Bundy who famously used one of his youtube pukefest to spew racist rhetoric about black people's living off the government while this man was literally doing the same thing by not paying his grazing fees. Even semi-fascist Glen Beck attacked these militia's saying that grazing on other people's land is not and should not be free. It is theft. The militia in Oregon want free land off the backs of hard working people's who pay taxes to preserve this land for nature. The militia's want to privatize the land and sell it to the highest bidder.
Luckily the militia can not keep peace within its own ranks. It is also literally organized by people who lied about their military service (supported in link) and schizophrenic people who have fantasies about being killed by the feds (also supported in link). So it looks like there is little chance of this proto-focoism catching on. Not to mention their call for snacks has gotten them boxes of dildos (yes the sex toys) lube and even the Socialist Workers Party sent them news papers. I have literally met no one who supports these militia outright.
As with any situation it get complicated when it comes to left. Some groups want the feds to smash the militia. Some want the militia to succeed to weaken the imperialist state. I can not support the militia in any way. But the militia is not relevant enough for supporting the government over the militia either at the beginning or currently. Right now they are just fascist light sitting in the frozen woods with about 100 (according to the militia) people. There is no reason to believe at this time that the militia is fighting for the proletarians and poor people's of this nation. The fact that Cliven Bundy is allowed to speak at these militia take overs tells us that they're perfectly accepting of the racial oppression upheld by our government and there is little to no reason to separate these entities. If anarchist and communist took over anything in this nation we would be crushed with violence at the first opportunities. If one Muslim took over a water pump in the middle of the woods the government would bomb the water pump and use it as an excuse to invade another country. Don't be confused brothers and sisters these militia and the government have little to no ideological differences. But the infighting should be encouraging to the left wing in this country. More on that later in the post. Neither side should be championed over the other as neither is fighting for the working class and poor masses. Both should be opposed and if they want to blow each other to pieces then so be it.
The Election Candidates;
Donald Trump: One disturbing discussion I've heard/read about on the left is on if Donald Trump is a fascist or not. Of course we have the overly academia who claim he can not be a fascist because he does not fit the description given to us by Trotsky, ignoring the fact Trotsky holds no authority on the topic as he neither fought or ever organized against fascism successfully. So I will not be using his definition. Now if he even was a fascist I would accept his definition but Trotsky was not a fascist so he really has no right to claim he knows what it is or how to stop it. I will take the word of a actual fascist as to what fascism is. It is corporatism mixed with jingoist xenophobia militarism that uses authoritarianism and oppression of working class parties to stay in power.
There is no reason to watch Trumps campaign and not see the connections between his ideas and that of fascist. To be clear here Donald Trump is a fascist and would want to implement fascism as soon as he could. Hitler didn't run on the campaign of putting people in ovens. Slowly over time he made laws and slowly changed his rhetoric to these policies but that was not his rhetoric at the time he rose to power. He talked of making Germany powerful and great again. Sound familiar? Yes? Because that is the rhetoric that is coming from Trump at this time. He talked of deporting peoples, he talked of races of people causing the ills of his society. Was sexist, racist and very pro-capitalist/imperialist. I think it is sad to see the left deny what could end us up in camps.
Hilary Clinton: I think this is obvious. Not even liberals are very supportive of Hilary at this time. Why would they be? Most people's in the states are sick of the Bush/Clinton dynasty. That is why this section will be short. Feminist see her as weak, liberals are scared of her conservative past. She was against gay rights up until it was a sure election loser to oppose gay rights, so that is another demographic she loses in the elections. She has no strong history on immigration rights. She has supported imperialism every step she could. All of those previous points then add the fact she is supper secretive and is known for making back ally deals to smear her opponents and the list goes on. I don't see her as a serious contender to win the presidency.
Bernie Sanders: This section is going to be me treading lightly as I feel no mater the conversation surrounding Sanders it will cause arguments among the left. So this candidate is complicated. Is he a socialist? no. Is he a social-democrat? Yes. Should communist/socialist support his campaign? Well that is a hard question to answer. Because he is not a socialist it is hard to imagine giving any real support to his campaign but his run is interesting because it has people talking about socialism in the United States. Now of course Sanders is a pro-imperialism pro-capitalist candidate. He would not have run on the democratic party if he was not. But his success is inspiring. He does have average Americans discussing and finding interest in socialism. My hope for his campaign is that more people will google and read up on socialism and once he falls threw on his promises that the masses will actually start looking for a true alternative. The fact that his campaign is getting the support it is getting tells us that socialism is not such a scary word as it used to be. Discussing his ideas and campaign with people has given me much opportunities to propagate for socialism and against his nationalism and imperialist support.
Should socialist work for his campaign? No. If you do you're supporting imperialism and are using right wing communism to justify your imperialist support. But we should not ignore and berate his supporters either. We should patiently explain why we like that socialism is becoming more of an acceptable ideology in the states while explaining that what Sanders supports is actually not our brand of socialism. We would never support someone who would cause damage to the world proletariat and Sanders would keep things more the same.
The Left Situation;
The left wing is in a special situation right now. The need for those who can unite is desperate. Will we be the generation of people's who finally cast aside the left wing privilege of splitting every time someone in the room sneezes and calls it a new idea? If you take socialism/communism seriously you should not engage in any more splitting. If you can't find a group that could represent you then start asking comrades for help. Creating new groups all the time with ideologies that already are represented by other groups is not going to help our cause. There are many grouping in the US (can't believe I am writing this AGAIN) that are separate based on trivial tactical preferences. Right now in history we have a chance to become relevant but due to party/organizational chauvinism and chest beating there is no real unity. I do not care how old or big your party or organization is, if you stay separate for trivial reasons you're anti-socialist and are a bigger road block to organizing revolution than the old McCarthyist were. The splits keep us irrelevant, separate and small. Start organizing for socialist revolution and stop organizing for your groups fund raising efforts. How would you know if you were organizing for socialist revolution or not? If you're not organizing for the overthrow of capitalist imperialism entrenched government for a people's government you're not organizing for socialist revolution. Power to the people!
