"Seattle's Socialist City Councilor Offers Radical Response to Obama Speech"

[socialist_n_TN]

194. We in Workers Power use centrist all the time to describe groups.......

that are subjectively "revolutionary", but use reformism and reformist tactics most of the time. Trotsky used it in the same way. When he talked about "centrism" (as in "Centrism hates to hear itself named&quot that's what he meant. Now, centrist groups can swing between revolution and reform, but the big problem with centrists is that when they spend so much of their time fighting for reformist goals, they run a BIG risk of BECOMING reformist, no matter what they say.

There's some folks here in Nashville that take it even farther. I suspect that they follow the Grant entryism tactic, but during the Occupy period, they wouldn't even call the systemic problems they were calling out "capitalism". They told me it was a "strategic decision" not to use the actual word to condemn the system even though that's what they believed. Sounds to me like they were actually calling a tactic a strategy too.

One of the BIGGEST problems with a self identified socialist, and ESPECIALLY a revolutionary socialist and Trotskyist, running on a left reformist platform is that when those policies fail, as they inevitably will, then most people who supported him/her will consider the failure to be socialism and socialist policies that have failed and NOT the policies of reformism. That's why you should always call it what it is.

And I agree that Comrade Sawant (who doesn't even use the appellation "comrade". Ever notice that?) sometimes calls for objectively revolutionary tactics. But, once again I reiterate, part of being a centrist as Trotsky understood the word, is to be revolutionary at times.