When Bernie first decided to run for President as a democratic socialist, challenging the extreme income inequality that advanced capitalism has brought to our society, I was excited. His message was echoing the Occupy Wall Street movement’s slogan that 1% of the wealthy owned more than the other 99%. Bernie was going to bring the concept of class struggle between working people and the corporate elite back into the political conversation! This is an old struggle that has a long history in our country, from the slave rebellions, to the trade union struggles of the Molly Maguire Miners, to the 20,000 strong Uprising of the women Garment workers in New York in the early 1900, to the strikes of industrial union workers and the legalization of collective bargaining during the Great Depression as part of FDR's New Deal.

Unfortunately, the concept of class struggle has been absent from the political scene for a few years as unions have lost their power. Why is it back now? Is this the same class struggle or socialism light? Will it work or what must we do to make it work?

The concept of income inequality has always competed with another concept of equality in America– the concept of equal opportunity under the American Dream, of freedom and democracy under capitalism. You know the one, “where through hard work and upward mobility you too can become a Bill Gates.” If there are problems in our society, they are because certain groups of people have not been offered equal opportunities – black citizens, for example, because of the history of US slavery and the subsequent institutionalization of racism. Or women, who have for most of recorded history taken a back seat due to the history of patriarchal oppression. Many of the progressive struggles in our history have focused on reforms to include those groups of citizens who have previously been excluded by assimilating them into our capitalist “democracy”.

For these folks, many of whom come from other countries, the American dream still often looks pretty good, After all, isn’t American the most powerful and developed country in the world? Even poverty here means you still have a toilet in your apartment (even if it doesn’t work half the time and your landlord won’t fix it).

Besides, the image of past socialist revolutions that require civil wars and violence and sometimes fail and other times end up run by dictators do not appear that appealing. After all we did get rid of legal segregation, we did get abortion, we all won the right to vote. Isn’t it better to win something, even if we sometimes go back a little, and then wait and move forward again? If a few of “our” people (whichever excluded group they are) can get to the seat of power through upward mobility, then they can help pull the rest of us up. It worked for the Kennedy family, we have had our first black president and we might even have a woman president.
The fact is that we only tend to turn away from reforms and to real social change when the American Dream does not seem to be working. With increased globalization, as Corporations started taking their factories overseas looking for the cheap labor, as the white male workers lost their manufacturing jobs. The middle class power they had won through their unions, their power as workers started to erode threatening their upwards mobility into the middle class.
The capitalist class took advantage of this to strengthen their power over workers, eventually eliminating workers social benefits and laws that protected workers economic power, further increasing economic inequality.

At this point, in the 1960s and 70s, the concept of class struggle quietly disappeared from the social agenda. However, those struggles that had been introduced to correct discrimination against groups that have been denied their right continued to have some support.

Interestingly, many of these struggles were against discrimination within unions themselves which followed the general societal pattern of discriminating against racial and religious minorities and women. Even in the socialist leaning unions where there was some effort to level the playing field, the concept of equal opportunity was expressed through such union songs as “There'll be no distinction there (in heaven), we'll all be white in that heavenly night" or the lines in that famous song about the "Union Maid" who stands up to the bosses but is told to "Get yourself a union man and join the ladies auxiliary."

Although the struggles for equal rights for African Americans, women and Latino farm workers waged by the mass movements during the 1960s alleviated some of the discrimination with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, by the mid-seventies the Republican business model of individual responsibility was in full force. Instead of collective action to change the system, workers now fought for programs that assimilated them into the capitalist model of individualistic upward mobility (affirmative action for women and racial minorities).

Eventually, Bill Clinton was elected in the 1990s, after a long period of control by Republicans. Hence, the success of the Clintons who turned away from the class issue and toward working with the corporate interests (called the third way), but making sure individual minorities and women were promoted and visibly successful in the government and the private sector. He was also able, with his corporate strategy which encouraged outsourcing and free trade deals, to encourage global development. This strategy did, for a while, provide an improved economy, and with the that also raised the standard of living for minorities and women at home. Although his administration set up regulations in the trade deals designed to protect both US and foreign labor, By demonstrating upward mobility and an improved economy, his administration become the new version of "progressive."

However, it became evident after a few years that the worker protections were ineffective and most of the economic development went to the corporate and financial elite.

By 2008, after another long period of brutal cutting of social services and the waging of expensive wars necessary to support the new economic paradigm, the financial crash blew the bubble apart. It is now clear, that the shift away from the public sector provision of social services and regulations has only increased economic inequality.

Even those reforms that provide upward mobility to individuals are threatened. De Facto and even some forms of legal segregation, and the elimination of women's rights such as birth control and abortion, laws enabling discrimination against certain groups of voters, are creeping back into the system. And the explosion of primarily black and Latino men working for no wages in prison heralds the possible return of actual slavery. The financial crisis of 2008 also has exposed the myth of upward mobility and left many of people, especially the young graduating college, with few options for good jobs and in deep debt from expensive rising college tuition introduced by the avaricious business class.

By promoting a traditional socialist agenda of social welfare service ranging from free government run health care to free college, Bernie soon won the allegiance of young voters, many of whom had who had earlier identified with the Occupy movement which helped them envision a world where problems are solved by the cooperative social action instead of capitalist competition.

Bernie’s message of getting back the manufacturing back to America and stopping the global trade agreements, also resonated with the unemployed and now excluded white male working class whose “better life through union living” had gone the way of the good union manufacturing jobs.

These are all good socialist approaches But is he really putting forward an agenda that leads to a unified socialist end or is his approach really about redressing the exclusion of certain groups from the American dream — in his case specifically those groups economically displaced by the recent economic crisis -- i.e., youth and the displaced industrial working class? Bernie talks about getting corrupt money out of the electoral system so we can legislate laws that will return fairness and a greater equity to our political system. Is he trying to create a space for a sort of European style Social Welfare state or a return to some sort of New Deal? A political revolution alone usually does not legislate capitalism out of existence, although over the years various socialists (e.g., Al Smith — US presidential Socialist Candidate 1928; Hugo Chavez — 21st Century Socialism, Venezuela) have tried electoral approaches. But will Sanders in his efforts to redress the exclusion of groups whose oppression is caused by capitalist economic exploitation also remember to redress the exclusion of other groups where the primary cause of the original exclusion is based on white supremacy or patriarchy?

Right now he is running as a Democrat. If his real goal is to ultimate build a strong enough grassroots movement of the working class to propel it from the political to the economic revolution, can he do it using his current strategies of ignoring what he considers less important issues — i.e., his position on black reparations or the increasing limits placed on women's right to abortion because he does not see these as economic issues?

The Influence of Black Lives Matter.

For me, the real movement started last year when three young women from Black Lives Matter interrupted a Bernie Sanders rally, I was shocked, but not at the interruption - nor even at the indignant reaction of Sanders and his white mostly male supporters at what they implied was the “thuggish” behavior of the women interrupting their hero (Having spent years in the white male left, I had expected that). What did surprise me was the fact that I, as a lifelong socialist who has worked for both workers’ rights and against racial oppression, had not, until that moment, protested or even registered how white Bernie’s rallies are.

On another level, I felt excited by the actions of the three young black women and the joyous calm I felt coming over me. I had found my place in the new social movement. Not only were the women protesting the exclusion of the black community, but they were women. Strong intelligent radical black women leading the struggle. And if Sanders didn’t exactly invite them into his socialist movement, they pushed their way in (to be clear, Black Lives Matter has not endorsed any candidate, but several active members have joined Bernie's team).

Although I believe in socialism and have the same positions on most progressive issues as Sanders, but until that moment I didn’t realize how alienated I had been feeling alienated from the movement I decided my role in the campaign is to push for a really socialist movement that unifies class, race, gender and age instead of each movement going its own way. And we can't convince our community to listen to us and change direction if we don't know where they are coming from or listening to them.

John Lewis, known as the power in the Congressional Black Caucus and an iconic hero of the civil rights movement, was asked why the black community was going 80-90% for Clinton despite Sanders’ record and Clinton’s high “un-trust-worthiness” factor. He quietly turned to the reporter and declared that two thirds of the black democrats were women and they trusted Hillary. There are several racist assumptions here that are exacerbated by the our white supremacist narrative (reflected in the media). One, that there is only one black community. Forget the fact that there are hundreds of different black cultures in America -- all of whom are discriminated against by virtue of their skin color. But for purposes of this essay, I want to limit the discussion to the two main current tendencies in what is called the African American culture that originated after Africans were delivered here as an enslaved people.

The influence of the Civil Rights And Black Power Movements.

The Civil Rights movement which, as its name suggests, was a movement to gain democratic rights in the existing American system. It began in the generation after WWII where blacks had given their lives for their country in a segregated army, black soldiers came back determined to end segregation in the South and get the voting rights that had been promised them over a hundred years earlier. There are many tendencies in the movement, but the primary focus and ideology was espoused at that time was by Martin Luther King, and was based on the concepts of nonviolent civil disobedience and the power of love. Regular people were jailed, beaten and died for these rights that they not only won back then (including a constitutional amendment) but they continue to be the major force in fighting the backlash against voting rights. They deserve to be respected.

A recent blog on DailyKos noted:

“The core of the message, the unspoken “truth” dancing around the Bernie movement is that “All of them over there (the Clinton side), they’re fundamentally corrupt and out to steal the election through trickery and manipulation.” [...] You’ve already told me I must dismiss John Lewis, the man whose seat in congress was earned with blood on that bridge in Selma. And I don’t give a damn whether he got it wrong on “seeing” Bernie Sanders. I don’t want to embrace a movement that asks me to call John Lewis bought, or a shill, just because he happens to choose one good candidate over another one.

The second current in the African American community was the Black Power movement which was based on a Warrior culture that believed in a militant program of armed self defense that "fights fire with fire."

The Black Power Movement began in the Northern Urban areas as a number of young people from the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) the younger students in Civil Rights movement who thought the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) was not radical or grassroots enough (and yes, it usually is young people who are the prime instigators of radical social change and carry most of the load — the are psychological papers explaining why but it is obvious — they are born in the midst of the developing future, they have the learned the new environment and accept it as the norm (in our case the Internet) and frankly they have the energy and physical strength to do the revolutionary work).

At any rate the movement was clearly revolutionary and included Black Nationalists (Malcolm X), and the Black Panthers who had an explicit socialist agenda. Although they are just in their formative stages, I would say that Black Lives Matter has the militant warrior energy of the Black Power movement. And, not surprisingly, I believe the Black Power movement was the historical ancestor of Black Lives Matter, although BLM is not a party. It is also interesting that this macho warrior culture has attached itself to the Sanders Campaign which is officially more of a nonviolent passive resistance culture identified with Sanders’ general inclination against war while the civil rights movement based on love as power (a feminine gender signifier) has attached itself to the candidate who is more militant and “Macho” on war). Black Lives Matter and a number of other militants have supported the Sanders campaign (with or without his consent) and I firmly believe if there is any group that can bring lefties and the black community together to try and build a real movement for socialism, it is the militants. And there are some signs that this is starting to happen. The only problem is whether it will be in time for the election and, if not, what effect a serious fight between democratic candidates will have on whether democrats win or lose the election.

Of course Susan Sarandon says we should go for it — nice people never win. Then things would get so bad (for her?), we would have to have a revolution. Its called the theory of heightened contradictions. Wonder where she got it? Channeling John Lewis I never saw her, or remember her, from any of the Maoist, Marxist Leninist and Trotskyist groups that I participated in.

The Women - Black, White, Young, Old

The second racist and sexist media approach is that when they talk about women, they always talk about white women. When they attribute an opinion to a black woman they always assume that is her opinion as a black person, representing the black community and does not include her experience as a woman. For the most part, the leadership of the civil rights movement has been male, but women have done most of the work. Many woman in the movement switched there allegiance from Hillary to Obama so they could elect the first black President. Many were probably angry at her determination to defeat him but many probably felt a loyalty to her when, after the primary she joined the Obama team, helped elect him and has continued to support him. After all, his election was really their achievement.

There was an interview where Nina Turner, a black woman organizer for Sanders. She implied that the mother of Sandra Bland (whose daughter was a victim of police brutality) is being manipulated because she supports Clinton. Ms. Reed-Veal, Sandra's mother, called Turner out and refuted the insinuation. As one woman said last week, we elected the first black president last time, now its her.

The flip side of that issue is the question of why so many young women don’t take pride in electing a woman president and, if anything, have an emotional investment in not electing a woman. I am sure they recognize that just because they are women, they shouldn’t been expected to vote for a woman whose ideas clearly don't represent their values, but I suspect it may at times go a little deeper than that (and here goes my pop psychology). We have all grown up with the script that women are the lesser sex and have no real power. Studies show that 7 to 10 percent of Americans, both male and female, would not vote for a woman for President. That people still feel uncomfortable with women in positions of power. Hillary’s “likability” factor goes up every time she appears more vulnerable.

For women, when we are trying to struggle out of this stereotype, and assume our right to power, it is very frustrating. How many times have you heard a woman say, “I will not grow up to be like my mother?" Whether we see women as overly aggressive or overly passive and people-pleasing, we cannot make our decisions on a candidate on those emotional undertones. We all are aware of the Obama haters. Hillary has her own Hillary haters (quote: “I will never ever vote for Hillary”) based on no logical reason, and also, Hillary lovers (based on no logical reason --even I was rooting for her in those Benghazi hearings when she stood her ground and came off as a tough competent woman, not a ditz).

Many people have been saying they’ll vote for Bernie but if he doesn't win (by the way, the unfavorable rating of socialists was 47% and Bernie hasn't even been vetted on that yet), they'll vote for Hillary because they feel that, in that scenario, she would stop Trump and fascism from taking over. Others believe that if you really want in the long term to make change, a vote for any in-system person tied to Wall Street and big money will be a distraction and derail the Sanders movement and momentum.

Perhaps the most invidious form of sexism is that woman are simple dismissed or ignored. As Emily Crockett recently said, “ across the board, people tend to mentally turn up the volume when women speak — and research proves it.” If a woman argues that the Hyde Amendment should be overturned, it is ignored if a woman says it. If a man says the same thing two days later, it is heralded in the press.

This dismissive attitude was carried over to issues. Even Sanders, with a “perfect” record on women's rights suggested unintentionally when the issue of punishing women for having an abortion came up, that he thought it was shameful, but that the subject distracted from more important economic issues. He does not see the economic implications that women’s unpaid reproductive labor can be equivalent to one fifth of the GDP according to some studies — second only to the military.

Where do we go from here?

People go out of their way to say that they are not racist or sexist, ageist or “classist.” We live in a racist, sexist, classist, ageist society. We all have our blind spots. This is where “Identity” politics may have a point. If you have experienced something personally you may be more aware of it. Just don’t let it take over the whole conversation.
The contradictions surrounding the “intersectionality” (read the influence of race, gender, class, and youth) of this year’s Democratic Presidential primaries have reached epic proportions. The Democratic party has always billed itself as the party of regular people, including those groups excluded from power, taking on the big business traditional family Republican brand. So why has the fight in the democratic primary got so publicly contentious the last couple of weeks?

The decisions each of us make individually in the next few weeks will, as a whole, affect the country and the world for years to come. As a lifelong socialist who was active in the 1960s and 70s movements against racism and sexism, I worked to end the exclusion of women and people of color from power in society in general, as well as where it occurred in the left socialist parties, I am trying to figure out if I am making my decisions on the basis of my gut level identity and personal experiences or my life long ideology and which criteria is most important in the end? Am I working for “just us” - or some kind of abstract justice? Or both?

Both Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton are running for the same ballot line on the same general ideas. So Is the increased antagonism just individual egos or is it deeper differences in ideology and strategy? By introducing the concepts of social and revolution (albeit only political) in the discussion has Bernie changed the rules of the game?