US leftists sloganising 'no borders; no bosses; no binaries'

[ZJW]

Socialism Conference 2019 – July 4-7, Chicago

Click the schedule, and it’s all the usual stuff:

Schedule & Speakers

[alanjjohnstone]

Thanks for the update. I have placed the link in the comments of our blog

https://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2019/07/what-really-is-socialism.html

[ZJW]

The conference denounced by other leftists:

https://thegrayzone.com/2019/07/06/dsa-jacobin-iso-socialism-conference-us-funded-regime-change/

[ZJW]

The Northites comments against it:

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/07/04/soci-j04.html?view=article_mobile

[ALB]

Not looked at the programme but what do you think they mean by ‘no binaries’?

[ZJW]

I wondered that too ………..

This I guess: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_binary.

and

And this as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_opposition#Deconstruction_of_binaries

[ALB]

i thought it would have to mean something like that. So they want people to be able to choose how they are to be classified from a gender/sex point of view. No problem in principle with that though I wouldn’t have thought it was on apartment with no Borders or no bosses.

Looks as if the trots think they have found another discontented group whose grievances they can exploit to win recruits or followers for their vanguard party.

However, this can’t be a proper “transitional demand” as it is something that capitalist states can grant and have in some places, the UK for instance where the “non-binaryists” are fighting not do much against the law as against some sections of public opinion (and some feminists)

[Anonymous]

This is the explanation I provided for someone on Facebook who asked the same question (from RationalWiki).

“In the United States particularly, politics is typically portrayed as a conflict between “Left v. Right” or “Conservative v. Liberal”, and only two parties (Republicans and Democrats) participate significantly in governance. The two parties identify along binary, polarised systems on several important issues.

The effect of seeing politics as a polarised binary field is that any other possibility for organisation is not given a strong voice, or even a place at the table, and most candidates must align themselves within the spectrum of that binary.

Simple examples as they play out in US politics, include issues such as “pro-life” v. “pro-choice”, whereas there is no real room to accommodate within the system someone who says “Hey, let’s focus on reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies”.

If the discussion is about taxes, the options are “tax more” and “tax less”. Creative solutions which do not fit into that system do not fit into the binary and therefore are not heard.

In addition, any politician who does not match the binary on all important issues is marginalised and voters who do not match are left out. For example, no US politician on the national level can be both pro-life and support gun control.”

It’s a problem which the Party has always had to contend with, most recently over our stance on Brexit, for example.

[alanjjohnstone]

Aren’t we the ultimate binaries . Capitalism or Socialism 😆

But in the context of the contemporary left politics, it is more the sexuality/gender issue being referred to, rather than the either/or situations

[ALB]

That’s a possible alternative explanation but I don’t think it can be in this case since at least one of the organising groups does accept the Democratic/Republican “binary” as they are busy boring from within the Democratic Party, ie the so-called the “Democratic Socialists of America.”

Incidentally, the word “alternative” originally meant a choice between one of two courses of action. It is only because it has come to be used to also mean a choice between more than two that the new word “binary” has been coined. It still seems odd though to use it in the plural unless for instance in this case it means No to both gender and political either/or choices.

[ZJW]

Much of this is incomprehensible to me but smarter people might find it useful:

https://en.internationalism.org/forum/1056/jk1921/14962/recent-attacks-icc-libcom?page=1

You might begin at random from poster d-man’s July 2019 posts. (Libcom regulars will recognise him despite the new name.)

[ALB]

Maybe it’s because there are so many ICCs such as this or this or this.

[Author]

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