"Hey, Ken, how about toning down the anger? I think there was a lot of truth in what Niles was saying, and I don't think any of it was intended as an 'insult.' The fact of the matter is that most 'activism' in this country IS reformist and NOT ideological. Back when there was a real Left in this country, there really wasn't any such thing as an 'activist.' There were, however, a lot of people dedicated to the destruction of capitalism."
Not true. Activist was their term. Here are some examples:
Solon DeLeon, son of Daniel, was a veteran of the communist/socialist movement from the day of his birth (and the CP's). He also was a 1960s Mississippi Freedom Movement volunteer. One of his frequent sermons concerned the way that radical activists managed usually to unite in struggle while their respective parties quarreled. Thus activists were for Solon the best leftists. George Rawick, a comrade from my teen years until his death a few years ago, under whose intellectual/academic connection I co-edited and published the Mississippi WPA slave narratives in 1976, made a similar point, and offered as evidence what he had learned in conversations with itinerant activist Fred Beal [Proletarian Journey]. It was the basis of George's support for my work, and his reason for urging me to relocate from Chicago to the South.
One of Solon's heroes was Charlie Garland, the rich young man of the post World War I period who put his entire fortune at the service of the Left, and shared his life with the activists (Solon's word) his money supported. The American Fund for Public Service (also called the Garland Fund) would be a fine model for today, in contrast to most of today's liberal and left philanthropists (Resist excepted) who often try to manipulate activists' political work through their purse power. Garland Fund money was made available on a non-sectarian basis to activist/organizers of every U.S. radical party and union, from the IWW to the TUUL, CP, CP(O), SP, and so forth, with representatives of each on its Board. When the Garland Fund posted bail for class war prisoners to skip, it did so by consensus, for example.
Claude and Joyce Williams of Commonwealth College, Arkansas; the Southern Tenant Farmers Union; and, during my time with them, SCEF, also proclaimed themselves activists in this mold, impatient with ideological squabbling but otherwise close to the CP, always immersed in workers' organizations.
Not one of these people, nor any of the SNCC veterans I know and work with, were ever anti-intellectual, so I'm at a loss as to where or why this charge has arisen. Can anyone imagine Fannie Lou Hamer or Hollis Watkins condemning intellect? What do you think the Freedom Schools were for? But when people choose academic life as a way to exit activism, and from that perch turn against their former comrades, that does merit condemnation.
Alex wrote, "Activism occurs today, and much of it is very valuable, but most of it occurs outside of any broader framework." I think he ought to avoid pronouncements out of ignorance. Offering one caricature to support such a sweeping indictment of "most" activism is outrageous.
Now as to anger: You may recall that in a previous "New Abolitionist" incarnation, Niles condemned anti-Klan/Nazi activism -- my principal public activity since I left the South -- as reactionary and counter-productive, never mind that I undertook this work at the urging of New African and African American comrades, which for them was response to a sudden and potentially catastrophic political emergency. So, yes I regard his arguments as racist pretexts for abstention and inaction. His is the very posture that Alex Cockburn praised recently in The Nation, when he offered Noel Ignatiev as exemplary while disparaging Leonard Zeskind, though Lenny, whatever his faults may be, is on the front lines of struggle. Noel, by contrast, sneered at organized opposition to the Gulf War as a waste of time. (In support of Louis Proyect's suspicion's about Cockburn's politics being driven by envy, it may be pertinent that Lenny, who until recently lived in poverty, has been awarded a MacArthur genius grant.)
In truth though, I am more disgusted than angered by Niles and his stupid adolescent hubris.
Ken Lawrence