As we count down to our next election and then the next general we should start looking beyond the silliness that is this two party system that has actually given this country nothing but grief.

Just have to throw some light on the Left in this country from late 19th century and into the 20th….yes it is a boring history lesson but a lesson that should be taught and learned….there is so much we can do as Americans and we need to be reminded of our strenth and power.

Eugene Debs….a tireless fighter for worker rights and unions….jailed several times for his work and even ran for president from prison….actually he ran for president 5 times starting in 1904 through 1920 and each time he got over 3% of the vote.  He was a tireless antiwar spokeman which got him arrested again for his opposition to American involvement in WW1….his voice lead the way for countless others, like myself, to see the problems and protest for a better nation.

Much of U.S. political commentary today oozes with pessimism: red-blue tribalism, the government shutdown, the alt-right … the list of fracture points is long. But for revolutionary socialists—those of us who believe an equitable world is possible if working people rise up and end capitalism—the picture is not all bad. A historic strike wave of teachers rolled across many regions of the country last spring, followed by the recent L.A. teachers’ revolt. Class struggle remains on the agenda, and many want an alternative to capitalism.

Given the increased interest in socialism, it’s worth defining the S-word: Does it refer to European Social Democracy (a la Sweden), the early Soviet Union, Cuba or something else entirely? Many people believe that socialism is foreign to the United States, a view that only reinforces the bourgeois status quo. In reality, socialist politics has a rich tradition in the U.S. and has influenced, as well as led, a variety of social movements. Today’s generation of radicals have the challenge of rescuing the best elements of the American socialist tradition from oblivion so we can effectively learn from the past and prepare for tomorrow.

When Bernie Sanders identified himself as a democratic socialist, Google searches for “socialism” spiked. Millions want to understand the legacy of socialist politics—what was achieved and what failed. In the United States, the Democratic Socialists of America has become the greatest beneficiary of renewed interest in socialism, with membership surging beyond 50,000. As a multitendency organization, the DSA has certain commonalities with the old U.S. Socialist Party (SP), the first anticapitalist party with real influence on American soil.

Most radicals today recognize the important achievements of the SP in the first decades of the 20th century. It led historic strikes, elected hundreds of its members to local and national offices and developed an array of newspapers—in a word, it made socialism relevant to American workers. That Eugene V. Debs, the SP’s most notable public figure, gained about a million votes for president while sitting in a jail cell for opposing World War I is proof positive that the Socialist Party is worth learning from.

https://www.leftvoice.org/from-debs-to-the-dsa-rescuing-americas-revolutionary-tradition/

The argument will be that the US is not going to embrace socialism…..and that is true only because of the distorted visions that the centrist want to present as facts.

Eighty-four percent of independent voters told pollsters last fall that “the United States is in a political crisis.” Democrats and Republicans flip back and forth on these kinds of questions depending on which team won the most recent election. But unaffiliated voters, the largest part of the electorate, are deeply concerned in ways that can’t be soothed by the next swing of the pendulum. Indeed, each “vibe shift” further convinces them that the system is see-sawing out of control.

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5873079-american-dissatisfaction-political-system/

All this leaves open for a new way of politics….but will the American have enough energy to find the alternative?

AS it is today I do not think they will….they are too set ion their ways to change…..but as the society deteriorates all things are possible…..and now is the time to start the search for a better tomorrow.

Will we?

Or will we just pick ‘not the other guy”?

What will it be?

Change or more of the same?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”