What it IS: reaching millions of people who have been turned off of the political process, and getting them involved again.

Sanders has said a thousand times that it's not about him. It's a distortion of his message to say otherwise.

That is perhaps the first good response I've heard to this.

Point taken, thanks.

I still think that even if we focus on those unparticipating people this should not be called a revolution.

If we want to call it that, we should be very specific and say that the engagement of the American electorate is the revolution. I think that is appropriate, but bound to be misinterpreted, as the shift leftwards in contemporary politics is what I've seen being most commonly referred to.

Simply put, while that may true, it's misleading and bound to be improperly understood.

“The only way we can do that is to revitalize American democracy [and] bring millions of people who have given up on our political process back into it,”

If we can get the majority of eligible voters to the polls, while it's still a pitiful number, it would be a revolution indeed.

Recognize this quote?

Tom Breaker: "Look, Bill, if this is about reliving the 60's, you can forget about it, buddy. The movement is dead."

William Strannix: "Yes, of course! Hence the name: movement. It moves a certain distance, then it stops, you see? A revolution gets its name by always coming back around in your face. You tried to kill me you son of a bitch... so welcome to the revolution."

A struggle that really has never taken a revolutionary form in the US except as a totally anticapitalist one, which this isn't.

Claiming that people are using it strictly in the sense of motion is a bit disingenuous.

... you wouldn't need to ask such a silly question.

and we are fortunate to be here for it. This is a great time to be alive.

However, if Bernie's peaceful revolution fails and the oligarchs continue to leave nothing to the American people but a life of tremendous struggle with little reward, we could be in for a violent revolution, along with the ravages of continued climate change. At that point, people of our generation (and I don't think you're too much younger than me) will, let us hope, be long gone. But all the young people we love will have to endure it. Let's try to keep that from happening by stopping the oligarchs and stopping or even reversing the progression of climate change, as much as we possibly can.

grassroots spirit and resources instead of photo-opts and polarizing platitudes with no details or reference of what a person has done and hasn't, a person with a history that backs up what they're saying right now .

Do we need to deceive to get the message out? How about we call it a tide of human decency? Or any other number of things that capture the spirit of what is currently happening?

Why do we need to use the rhetoric of revolution? It seems to me there are better ways, and certainly more factual ones.

I've used that a hundred times in posts the last 3 months, the maturing of American voters ? And I don't get where the question comes from " Do we need to deceive to get the message out " ????

Accurate, too. I think I'll use that term.

As far as deceit, I meant that we should not have to deceive people into thinking they are accomplishing much more than they actually are in order to motivate them to join or participate in a cause. It makes it that much harder should there ever be the need for true revolution, too.

IMO it's a Revolution. The Peoples Revolution.

I don't have to conform to your thinking. Sorry you just plain don't get it.

But as someone who's been talking to many actual revolutionaries lately, I think it's perhaps not the best idea to conflate the two ideas.

I'm not against the idea, simply the terminology. Just like I'm not against most of the ideas behind the movement, but I don't like the idea of them being called socialistic. Quite simply because they aren't.

Why is it necessary for us to use the rhetoric of revolution when it plainly isn't in any meaningful or useful sense of the term? Aren't there other things we could use to inspire a mass revitalization of liberal thought in this country?

You are correct. By the technical definitions of the term it is not a Revolution.

But in an era where "liberal" is defined as "tol far left" and "conserative" is branded as the "mainstream center" and when the economy and democracy are caught in a corporate straigtjacket, I'd say an attempt to change the terms of the political debate, and get peope engaged to push for reform is comparatively revolutionary.

But I hesitate to use the term in a political context, as it means a very specific thing. Thanks for your thoughts.

country essentially:1) The revolutionary war, and
2) the civil war.
TR and later FDR avoided a true revolution, by
changing society in a peaceful way.
(Although WWII played a roll in this as well.)

I would prefer the term "velvet revolution", i.e.
without huge violence, but causing dramatic
changes in our society.
Just my thoughts.

But velvet revolution does not have quite the same ring to it, unfortunately.

I wouldn't mind calling it a revolution in thought, or a revolution of perspective.

What was revolutionary to say was that progressives should stop putting AA issues on the back burner and focus on them for a change.

We can see how the armchair class warrior "revolutionaries" received that.

haven't shit to say or solutions to offer struggling working class people and the poor of all creeds and races. It's that simple. The armchair bullshit and feel good platitudes belong to you and those who think institutionalized racism will magically disappear without addressing capitalist social relations and economic justice.

That supporters of Clinton and the neoliberal wing of the Democratic Party actually think that their "solutions" would carry any more weight than a vanilla socialist like Sanders is utterly laughable. Until class and the foundations of capitalism are addressed in any proposed solutions nothing will be solved. Period and end of story.

Maybe I got you confused with another that uses the Nuclear tag. Seems to be more than one here on further review.

When I here the term "armchair class warriors" it immediately sets off the alarm bells because there is actually more value in the class analysis of one "armchair class warrior" - that knows where they stand in the relationship between labor and capital - than a hundred supposed "left activists" who think a winning "social justice" platform is the "equality of all" to starve under capitalist social relations. A smashing victory for those with the dough and status I'm sure.

When losing a little bit less is a victory. Fuck. That's no victory at all.

A progressive or a liberal.

That said...the excitement over a politician - that even attempts to challenge the status quo - is understandable though.The liberal/progressive wing of the Democratic Party hasn't had much to get excited about for a long time so it seems like something "revolutionary" to them. It is far from that and has little to do with leftism. Bernie Sanders very rarely mentions capitalism as the foundations of the problem. That's also understandable if you're trying to win bourgeois elections.

As another leftist once said and it couldn't be more true -- "Leftists are not interested in the pity, the charity, or the good works of benevolent capitalists, politicians, and owners operating under the guise of "aiding those less fortunate" and throwing some crumbs to the "common rabble." Leftists are interested in working class power and controlling their own destiny - so there won't be any "less fortunate" and no great and privileged class will ever need to pity the poor people again, because there won't be either."

That is the difference and bottom line between the politics of liberal/progressive reform and the politics of most leftists.

Whether Sanders is more radical than he lets on is anyone's guess. He has many warts that would suggest otherwise. Bernie can call himself a leftist or a socialist all day long, but until he denounces capitalism - as the 800 pound wild gorilla destroying everything in the room - he isn't. Certainly nothing in his platform is all that radical or revolutionary. Just some things that most people - that hope for a more equitable society - would go for. Hope is not a solution though.

It is what it is F4lconF16. One thing Bernie Sanders has done is shaken the tree and the narrative somewhat. People are talking about some things that are demands of leftists also. It is all for naught though if all that energy is funneled back into the Democratic Party establishment machine if the Sanders campaign doesn't win. If Sanders wins... maybe the capitalist dogs get forced to throw the working class a few bones. That's about the best the working class can hope for with capitalist reformers and it obviously never lasts as long as the capitalist power structure remains in place.

I would reply in more depth, but you've given me a lot to chew on, and I think changed my perspective on this. Thank you for your words.

rid of capitalism is because he is not a socialist - he is a Democratic Socialist. The European countries still practice capitalism.

which presents a problem for many leftists. Democratic Socialism includes a ruling class that still owns and controls the means of production along with a wage slave system in which workers are still expendable at the whim and call of the owners and capital. Nordic model countries are under severe pressure to apply austerity and gains will be rolled back as global capitalism continues on it's march.

control over that global capitalism but not anymore since the division in wealth. Now no matter where you are at the wealthy rule the banks, corporations and resources. They buy the legislatures and the preachers.

BTW the idea of revolution has been used to explain many world changes in the past that did not involve the entire overthrow of the reformed system. The Reformation era comes to mind. The discovery of various medications that changed the world also fits. The industrial revolution also left parts of the old system standing. Yet they were revolutionary in the effects that they produced.

This political revolution is the only way we can hope to change anything without a bloody revolution.

Many of the marxists, socialists, communists, leftists, or whatever term one wants to use for those who see capitalist social relations as the underlying problem are often accused of a dogmatic singular way of defining terms and demands. I certainly wouldn't attempt to speak for all leftists but I know that is not the case for many.

I don't think most have ever said that the fight for higher wages within the system, universal single payer health care, and many other of the things that Democratic Socialism/ liberal/progressive reform would offer are not things to fight for as part of the battle that the working class and the struggling are faced with. The difference is that leftists do not focus on those things as the final word and the end-game going forward. Leftists are not satisfied with that alone. In the long run... leftists do not want the capitalist power structure to dictate the terms and conditions of societal change and their destiny. Better the commons, the distribution of resources, and our labor is in our control to benefit the whole rather than a minority ruling class calling the shots.

---------------------------------------------------

But it is not the highness or lowness of wages which constitutes the economical degradation of the working class: this degradation is comprised in the fact that, instead of receiving for its labour the full produce of this labour, the working class has to be satisfied with a portion of its own produce called wages. The capitalist pockets the whole produce (paying the labourer out of it) because he is the owner of the means of labour. And, therefore, there is no real redemption for the working class until it becomes owner of all the means of work -- land, raw material, machinery, etc. -- and thereby also the owner of THE WHOLE OF THE PRODUCE OF ITS OWN LABOUR.

--Friedrich Engels

do we get there from here. While the voters will accept the idea of fixing capitalism as Bernie describes it I don't think they are ready for what Engels is talking about. They are too afraid.

And to tell you the truth when the Hillary group tell us that Bernie is not going to get anything done if elected that is what they are saying. The difference between the Hillary group and many of us who are working for Bernie is that we see it as a start. A place to begin the turning of the system. I think that global warming/climate change and other crisis will move us further as it gets worse. Or at least I hope so. Unfortunately the greed of the rich coupled with that may work to destroy us.

My greatest fear is that if we do not start the fight now it is going to be too late. This is nothing like the days when a group of men and women Russia can pick up a pitch fork and over throw an army. The corporations and banks and military industrial complex continue to gain power and a strangle hold over the country. We cannot wait any longer.

it's hard to say. I don't profess to have the answers. We are boiled from birth - like those poor frogs in a pot - to believe capitalist social relations are the only way forward. I believe you're right that a lot of people are scared of losing what little they might have. I think most struggling people will get there on there own as material conditions dictate. It's not that hard to see the writing on the wall of the destruction that capitalist social relations are causing for the "losers" in the "game" of capitalism. For the minority of "winners"... all calls for real change in social conditions will be met with deep resistance.

I think unyielding criticism of what is real and what isn't is a start. Which side are people on in the relationship between labor and capital - regardless of what labels they're wearing - is also something to go on. Organization of a mass movement outside the current electoral structure to force any possible changes might be a possibility when the climate is ripe for such a movement. Who stands with labor and the struggling in all things and who stands with capital and the owners is where the line is drawn.

Recycling a bit but I think I mentioned to someone else here that the overriding responsibility of anti-capitalists (leftists) is to unyielding critique the mechanisms of capitalism and everything that goes with it (economic, political, and social) including elections in a capitalist power structure. Regardless of who is nominated and elected in the 2016 election... the capitalist power structure will remain the same and the responsibility of leftists will remain the same. All leftists can do is deliver a message and organize and agitate for leftist demands on the net, in the street, in the workplace and everywhere else when possible. Mass political movements take time to form. It usually doesn't happen overnight.

As far as revolution and pitchforks...when people say that all leftists are automatically calling for violent revolution to enact wholesale change that is not the case. Nobody can predict that happening or not. Possibilities lie between reforms and violent revolution.

the best discussions I have had in a long time. I feel like I am back at the University and that my friend makes me feel very young again.

Sanders is pushing the overthrow of paradigms, no doubt

Perhaps in a way, but as mentioned above, he ignores too much. I don't think he is, not for a moment.

I'm sorry; stop calling it a what?

Just realize how much could be considered a "revolution" by that definition. As someone put above, revolution also means a form of motion, which is just as meaningful to this discussion.

If it weren't for the fact that this movement has been declared a "political revolution" with many clear implications, you might have a point.

-- the American Revolution, the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, for example-- "revolutions" need not be violent.
The "Industrial Revolution", for example, fits Merriam-Webster's definition.

Which has a significantly narrower range of possibilities and a much more clearly defined classical idea, hence my problem with the usage of the term.

it probably entails violence. However, even the Oxford Dictionary notes that it does not necessarily entail violence

"Revolution: "a ​change in the way a ​country is ​governed, usually to a different ​political ​system and often using ​violence or ​war"

Note the qualifier "often".

Not sure where you're getting that from.

I simply mean a complete or near-complete replacement of the current political establishment, usually (but not always) with the goal of further reformation of the system. A political revolution may result in a full revolution, that is, not a reformation of the state/system, but replacement.

Can be violent, might also not be.

But in the face of nearly 40 years of flawless, constant neoliberalism and neoliberal apologetics, the ass-slapping between parties where "okay, it's your turn now" rules the day, where "Democrats" are barely distinguishable from yesterday's John Birch society? Bernie certainly comes off as revolutionary.

I'm a pretty legit socialist and I don't have a problem with it.

Revolution has more than one meaning in the dictionary.

The 1% is the ruling class and we want to push them aside and replace that with democracy. Good enough.

You ask "Can we stop calling Sander's movement a revolution?". But if we're doing it right then it's not Bernie's movement, it's our movement. Bernie is just offering his services as the political arm of a much broader social movement that includes workers struggles, the climate justice movement, racial justice movement, internet freedom, anti-war people, etc.

Not a revolution by some definitions, but it's all we have so make the most of it.

It's a campaign slogan so if it helps you can say it's just a metaphor.

movement is about that. A political revolution to overthrow an oligarchy.

Here's Merriam-Webster:

• a sudden, radical, or complete change
  
• a fundamental change in political organization; especially : the overthrow or renunciation of one government or ruler and the substitution of another by the governed
  
• activity or movement designed to effect fundamental changes in the socioeconomic situation
  
• a fundamental change in the way of thinking about or visualizing something : a change of paradigm <the Copernican revolution>
  
• a changeover in use or preference especially in technology <the computer revolution> <the foreign car revolution>

Your understanding of the word is too literal.

Unless you're not referring to Senator Bernie Sanders of VT.