Whither the "Political Revolution"?

http://www.solidarity-us.org/node/4689
Date Written:  2016-07-01
Publisher:  Against the Current
Year Published:  2016
Resource Type:  Article
Cx Number:  CX21448

A new generation is forming its political identity - large numbers of youth, the majority of whom belong to the working class or a collapsing "middle class," have been shaped by the Sanders phenomenon in ways that will last long after this election. They are open to socialist ideas, and many have gained experience in organizing.

Abstract: 
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Excerpt:

The Labor for Bernie network is an all-volunteer independent, grassroots rank-and-file-based network that has already had a big impact on the broader labor movement. The network includes thousands of elected officers, shop stewards, organizers and rank-and-file members.

It has tapped into the widespread disgust with bureaucrat-driven, transactional, business-as-usual politics, insisting that our unions should only endorse candidates that actually support union values. Pushing back against premature and top-down endorsements by union officials, Labor for Bernie has organized to demand broad membership debate and discussion about the candidates and their stands on the key issues.

While the bulk of the labor bureaucracy is joined at the hip with the Clinton and neoliberal Democratic leadership, the dynamism of the Sanders campaign and Labor for Bernie’s organizing, has fostered cracks in labor’s slavish alignment with the Democratic Party establishment.