General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: It tells us nothing at this point that HRC beats Bernie among women and poc. [View all]Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)He's never said that we shouldn't talk about racism, sexism, homophobia, trans phobia, ableism or religious/ethnic bigotry, because socialism would make all of those ills vanish.
If he thought that, he wouldn't have participated in the black freedom movement, a struggle that commenced when the socialist movement in the U.S. was at its absolutely lowest ebb(right after the McCarthy era).
And almost nobody on the U.S. left argues that struggles against social oppression shouldn't take place even while we still live under capitalism.
That's what's so maddening...Bernie's being attacked and his supporters are being attacked for something they haven't been saying.
Does he have to give up working for social democracy before people involved in anti-oppression struggles finally believe that he isn't ignoring them? If he gave up working for social democracy, there'd be no reason for his candidacy to exist, and nothing distinctive in it. He might just as well endorse HRC(not that she's actually good on anti-oppression issues) and retire to Vermont.
Economic justice doesn't end all forms of oppression-we all KNOW that. But it is crucial if we're really going to solve those problems in the end, because oppression can't be truly ended while we still have a capitalist economic system. The Sixties proved that. You need BOTH struggles for either to ultimately prevail.
Martin Luther King, Jr., was killed for making that connection.