"activism"

[Alex LoCascio]

On Thu, 03 Dec 1998 13:24:04 -0800 Paul Henry Rosenberg <rad at gte.net>
writes:

>After all, Marx supported reforms in his day.  Surely there must be 
>SOME
>reforms worth struggling for nearby that have seeds of future 
>struggle
>in them, no?

Well, here's the thing, Paul:  Upon returning from Union Summer this past
August, fresh from the front lines of the class struggle (such as it is
these days) and full of idealism,  I decided to hike on down to the local
AFL-CIO Central Labor Council and see if they had any use for me.  As it
turns out, they did.  The AFL, along with kindred Democratic Party
interest groups like the NAACP and the APRI, was hard at work getting out
the vote for Rep. Mel Watt and Senate candidate John Edwards.  Now, Watt
is a very decent guy, so of course I volunteered.  Edwards I had more
reservations about, but he did strike me as a bit of a Naderesque
crusading lawyer type, so I figured what the hell.  So I got the vote
out, and you know what?  I don't think what I did was the least bit
helpful to the struggle, even in a reformist sense.  Sure, it was nice to
see Lauch Faircloth booted out of the Senate, but really, all I did was
help the Democrats maintain the illusion that they're the party of "the
people."

Now, as ol' Lou Proyect has pointed out before on this list, Marx himself
had no problems with participating in bourgeois parliaments.  He did,
however, reject the notion of participating in bourgeois parties.  Hell,
I wasn't even working for "reformism."  I was just maintaining the status
quo.  Sorry, but that's not my idea of worthwhile activism.

There IS something down here calling itself the "Progressive Alliance,"
but it's nothing but a vanity group for local Clintonite blowhard Jerry
Klein.  Klein is a columnist for the local "alternative" (ha ha!) weekly,
and he's rather fond of penning soporific pieces about The Winter
Solstice and similar naval gazing New Age nonsense.  We're talking about
a guy whose idea of progressive activism is leading a demonstration
against Ken Starr when the latter spoke here a while back.  I'm just not
interested in that kind of silliness.

Now then, that leaves the current strike by USWA Local 850 against
Continental General Tire.  Now THIS is something that I think would be
worth supporting.  Lbo-talk's own Tom Lehman has contacted some USWA
honchos and passed my name and contact info along if they need any help. 
So we'll see.



___________________________________________________________________
You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail.
Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com/getjuno.html
or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866]