The Freedom Socialist Party on Sanders

Posting this item from them because they are headquartered in Seattle, and I know a lot of them. Very decent people, though much more into theorizing than into voter contact. (But they are supporting Socialist Alternative candidate Kshama Sawant, even though they think she compromised too much on the $15/hour implementation.)

Hoping that this will clear up the delusions held by some on this site that there is such a thing as the "far left" here. There is such a thing in the larger world, but with the exception of Socialist Alternative, they are mainly involved in theoretical discussions and study groups. Forty years ago, they were fighting mimeograph wars--now it's Facebook and Twitter wars.

http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-10-13/bernie-sanders-isn-t-socialist-enough-for-many-socialists

Just as liberals in the Democratic Party are torn between going with the candidate who expresses their values (Sanders) and the one who they think can win (Clinton), so are divisions on the furthest reaches of the American left divided between the practical and the possible. On the former side is what remains of the Communist Party, which has, counterintuitively, been a reliable endorser of the eventual Democratic nominee (and which has often been criticized by other leftist parties as “Communist in Name Only.”)

“We are part of the broad anti-right coalition in this country. We work with and in the Democratic Party,” said John Bachtell, chairman of the Communist Party USA. “We are very glad that Bernie Sanders is running in the Democratic Party, and if he doesn’t win I am sure he will join with the rest of us in making sure that the Republicans are defeated in 2016.”

It is on this point that the Communist Party stands alone. For the rest of the left, running in the Democratic Party is akin to making common cause with the enemy. And so even those willing to overlook Sanders’ impurity on issues like foreign policy and immigration stop at the fact that Sanders will finally capitulate and support the Democrat.

For the left, with Corbyn and Sanders, it’s a hopeful time. “The whole Bernie Sanders phenomenon to me shows the discontent that is bubbling up and how new modes of resistance are forming,” said Phillip Locker, a spokesman for Socialist Alternative and an aide to Kshama Swant, who causes ripples in leftist circles in 2013 when she won a citywide race for Seattle City Council as an out and proud socialist.