to our boy Bernie, enthusiastically kept the imperial projects of their respective countries going rather than push back that hard against UK, French or US imperialism
Sanders hasn't tried to cut the military budget? He hasn't opposed US interventions?
I think leftists need to stop overreaching in their efforts to connect things.
Social Democracy is an economic model and series of methods for changing wealth distribution. Where that wealth comes from really doesn't matter to what social Democracy is. The foreign policy carried out by the government or movement has no bearing on wether it's a Social Democracy. You can have Social Democracy that's Imperialist and derives its wealth from its empire, or you can have a Social Democracy of colonized states, of marginalized people.
You don't need to hate people based on the label attached to them. You can actually put that asside and judge them on their actual actions and beliefs.
It's probably more accurate to say that social democrats inadequately, inconsistently opposed imperialism. That's still bad -- no one here is saying socdems are the ideal -- but it's not "enthusiastically keeping the imperial projects of their countries going."
Look at the peaceful independence of British colonies like Jamaica and Sierra Leone, or the American handover of The Philippines (a process started in 1934). Obviously those countries never should have been colonies to begin with, and you can say that neocolonial financial trappings undercut the significance of independence, but that's something less than enthusiastically maintaining empire. You can also look at how opposition to the imperial project in Vietnam was a major point of contention within the Democratic Party at the 1968 convention and how Bernie voted against the Iraq War. Again, these few steps are far from good, but they're also less than enthusiastic support for empire. At some point this stuff gets so far away from the common conception of "fascism" for "social democracy is the moderate wing of fascism" to make any sense for ordinary people.
Imperial countries were forced to leave their colonies in some cases, but left without any real revolutionary threat in other cases. Where was the revolutionary threat in Jamaica in 1960? Where was the revolutionary threat in The Philippines in 1934? I can believe that France saw the writing on the wall in Morocco, but there was actually some violence there (albeit short of a revolution). But there are some cases where there was no significant violence, and where there was no one who would have obviously forced them out.
Painting these events with a broad brush gets sloppy fast. "Bernie Sanders is just another flavor of fascist" isn't going to move anyone who isn't already a communist, anyway.
Well said. The fact that most of these "peacefully" freed nations still are largely economically ruled to the benefit of their "former" colonizers is telling. It always comes with implicit threats. Connolly said as much when talking about Ireland
If you remove the English army to-morrow and hoist the green flag over Dublin Castle, unless you set about the organisation of the Socialist Republic your efforts would be in vain.
England would still rule you. She would rule you through her capitalists, through her landlords, through her financiers, through the whole array of commercial and individualist institutions she has planted in this country and watered with the tears of our mothers and the blood of our martyrs.
England would still rule you to your ruin, even while your lips offered hypocritical homage at the shrine of that Freedom whose cause you had betrayed.
Nationalism without Socialism – without a reorganisation of society on the basis of a broader and more developed form of that common property which underlay the social structure of Ancient Erin - is only national recreancy.
It would be tantamount to a public declaration that our oppressors had so far succeeded in inoculating us with their perverted conceptions of justice and morality that we had finally decided to accept those conceptions as our own, and no longer needed an alien army to force them upon us.
As a Socialist I am prepared to do all one man can do to achieve for our motherland her rightful heritage – independence; but if you ask me to abate one jot or tittle of the claims of social justice, in order to conciliate the privileged classes, then I must decline.
Such action would be neither honourable nor feasible. Let us never forget that he never reaches Heaven who marches thither in the company of the Devil. Let us openly proclaim our faith: the logic of events is with us.
I get that you aren't going around telling libs that Bernie Sanders is basically a fascist, but this isn't a private forum, not everyone is as careful as you, and leftists sliding into "One True Leftist" territory at the expense of anything resembling a mass movement is a real problem. Entertaining stuff like this doesn't do any good and might do some bad.
And I don't think France getting their asses chased out of Algeria and Indochina explains the British turning over Jamaica (where there was no threat of anything like those French imperial wars), and it definitely doesn't explain the U.S. deciding to grant independence to The Philippines 20-30 years earlier.
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Sanders hasn't tried to cut the military budget? He hasn't opposed US interventions?
deleted by creator
I think leftists need to stop overreaching in their efforts to connect things.
Social Democracy is an economic model and series of methods for changing wealth distribution. Where that wealth comes from really doesn't matter to what social Democracy is. The foreign policy carried out by the government or movement has no bearing on wether it's a Social Democracy. You can have Social Democracy that's Imperialist and derives its wealth from its empire, or you can have a Social Democracy of colonized states, of marginalized people.
You don't need to hate people based on the label attached to them. You can actually put that asside and judge them on their actual actions and beliefs.
It's probably more accurate to say that social democrats inadequately, inconsistently opposed imperialism. That's still bad -- no one here is saying socdems are the ideal -- but it's not "enthusiastically keeping the imperial projects of their countries going."
Look at the peaceful independence of British colonies like Jamaica and Sierra Leone, or the American handover of The Philippines (a process started in 1934). Obviously those countries never should have been colonies to begin with, and you can say that neocolonial financial trappings undercut the significance of independence, but that's something less than enthusiastically maintaining empire. You can also look at how opposition to the imperial project in Vietnam was a major point of contention within the Democratic Party at the 1968 convention and how Bernie voted against the Iraq War. Again, these few steps are far from good, but they're also less than enthusiastic support for empire. At some point this stuff gets so far away from the common conception of "fascism" for "social democracy is the moderate wing of fascism" to make any sense for ordinary people.
deleted by creator
Imperial countries were forced to leave their colonies in some cases, but left without any real revolutionary threat in other cases. Where was the revolutionary threat in Jamaica in 1960? Where was the revolutionary threat in The Philippines in 1934? I can believe that France saw the writing on the wall in Morocco, but there was actually some violence there (albeit short of a revolution). But there are some cases where there was no significant violence, and where there was no one who would have obviously forced them out.
Painting these events with a broad brush gets sloppy fast. "Bernie Sanders is just another flavor of fascist" isn't going to move anyone who isn't already a communist, anyway.
deleted by creator
Well said. The fact that most of these "peacefully" freed nations still are largely economically ruled to the benefit of their "former" colonizers is telling. It always comes with implicit threats. Connolly said as much when talking about Ireland
I get that you aren't going around telling libs that Bernie Sanders is basically a fascist, but this isn't a private forum, not everyone is as careful as you, and leftists sliding into "One True Leftist" territory at the expense of anything resembling a mass movement is a real problem. Entertaining stuff like this doesn't do any good and might do some bad.
And I don't think France getting their asses chased out of Algeria and Indochina explains the British turning over Jamaica (where there was no threat of anything like those French imperial wars), and it definitely doesn't explain the U.S. deciding to grant independence to The Philippines 20-30 years earlier.