Not only no argument with this, it's one of the points I have tried to clarify -- we on the left, particularly those out of Marxist-Leninist, Maoist, and Trotskyist traditions, often (I still believe) tend to lump folks together in our minds, if not in our speech. The doctrinal/theological and social outlook differences between various denominations and even within them are probably as sharp as they are between any number of contending "revolutionary" organizations. I did not know, for example, until recently that there are "evangelical" Catholics, Methodists, Presbyterians, etc. I doubt that this is common knowledge among the avowedly atheist/agnostic revolutionary left. Were they to discover this, I am doubtful most would understand what are its implications within the religious community and for work between the Left and various elements of that community.
That we must talk
>with them is a general statement that both of us can agree on (and both of
>us have been already putting into practice). I assume the same about other
>atheist leftists and religious leftists.
I have been around the left long enough not to make that assumption. But perhaps your experience has been different.
Beyound repeating this general
>statement, do you have some specific ideas, especially the ones that take
>into religious/denominational differences into account? For instance, how
>to start a dialog amont Zionist Jews (who are also internally divided into
>Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, and liberal non-believers), Palestinian
>nationalist + devout Muslims, believers in the Nation of Islam,
>Pentecostals, Wiccans, and Southern Baptists? Any ideas?
Nothing like starting with one of the toughest problems to guarantee failure. I may not be making myself clear, but in another post I tried to present an approach that looks for values, issues, interests, concerns, or whatever offers a starting point for dialog and some limited forms of joint actions that establish relationships that get beyond stereotypes. This necessarily requires that you start with narrowly defined or limited issues, not the ones around which there are already the sharpest divisions. If a precondition for doing anything together or even meeting to discuss shared values is that an anti-abortion evangelical must endorse abortion on demand, or that a women's choice advocate must agree that abortion is murder, obviously that about ends the discussion before it begins. Both might agree, however, that despite their deep differences on the abortion issue they share a common concern about the quality of health services available to pregnant women, infants, and children. I offered the other example of the building trades/environmentalist coalition and how it emerged from a small, tentative, and risky meeting between a small group from each camp who started by debunking their respective stereotypes of one another.
As a union organizer, I once led a campaign among a workforce of 350 factory workers, 90% of whom were Latinos (many undocumented immigrants), and the majority of those came from a single area of Mexico. The organizing committee was led by a Cuban exile who fled shortly after the revolution to avoid prison for running a prostitution ring. He was rabidly anti-communist. The next most influential member of the committee was a leftwing Salvadoran. They were joined by a large number of the Mexicans, many of whom were connected through extended family ties and none of whom identified themselves as "political" in any conventional sense of the word. They confronted a group of supervisors who were almost entirely former Somosistas who served in the Nicaraguan army against the guerrillas. They were not only thoroughly reactionary, but treated the workers, regardless of background, with utter contempt. It would have been impossible to put together a winning union organizing drive there if the deeply felt political differences were the starting point for discussions of unity. The workers understood they had to set aside their differences and mutual suspicions, including national stereotypes of one another, in order to face a common and far more powerful adversary, the employer, who was aided by a corrupt union with a sweetheart contract that had held them prisoner for more than a decade. They endured an 18 month struggle in which 19 were fired, the plant was picketed for 3 months, virtually every unfair labor practice under the NLRA was committed, and yet ultimately won the right to be represented by a union of their choice. There's more, but the point I hope is clear.
[SNIP] I said in part:
> And suppose that in the course
>>of work on those shared concerns both personal and political relationships
>>developed that permitted a less emotional, accusatory, judgmental discussion
>>that sought to expand the areas of agreement, narrow those of disagreement,
>>and come to some accommodation on a greater range of issues that brought
>>those believers into others struggles for social and class justice. Would
>>that not represent an advance over what we now see?
You responded:
>You call it advance; I call it the status quo. We are already doing this
>'agree to disagree' business, aren't we?
I think we have a very different interpretation of reality. I'm looking into the elephants trunk while you are peering up its ass.
And isn't that the reason why 83 %
>of counties in the USA have no abortion clinics, the average age of
>abortionists is higher than 60, young doctors are shunning (and even
>avoiding the training in) the practice of abortion, more and more
>restrictions (parental notification, parental consent, exclusion from
>health insurance coverage, mandated 'counseling' by doctors, etc.)? How do
>you propose to change this status quo for the better, and I mean _for the
>better for poor working-class women_ who need free or at least
>state-subsidized abortion and easy access to abortion providers?
I propose that this condition exists not because we are doing what I suggest above, but because, with some exceptions, most of the Left is not. Short of a 'holy war' to see who's left standing, what do you propose as a strategy for turning this around?
[SNIP]
>I think your example of a dialog between environmentalists and construction
>trades is a good one. However, the context and nature of discussion change
>when we move to a question of Religion and Abortion.
Context and subject of the discussion change, but I suggest if you spend some time in the timber mill and logging towns of the NW or No. CA and monitor the attitudes of loggers and mill workers toward environmental activists it would become clear that emotions invested, the sense of desperation, and the gulf of mutual emnity and anger are not so different.
If you've got a better approach, I'm all eyes.
In solidarity, Michael E.