-----Original Message----- From: Rakesh Bhandari <bhandari at phoenix.Princeton.EDU> To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com>
>I don't think there is a black agenda-- radical, liberal or conservative.
>Often the expulsion of all non-black others from such racially exclusive
>conferences has the effect of isolating and thus dispiriting those blacks
>in favor of revolutionary proletarian politics. ...I think
>a better radical congress would be one organized in terms of radical
>opposition to the Democratic Party and existing trade union movement
First people worry about divisions created by racial balkanization (which the BRC is explictly working to fight), then we have a proposal to really splinter and divide the black community by saying that we should exclude anyone who supports members of the Congressional Black Caucus or support, however critically, the fight of the labor movement in its current direction.
Of course, there are divisions on these issues but having every issue of contention mean that we need a different organization has been a recipe for the powerlessness and weakness of the Left.
The one reason I have remained involved in the Committees of Correspondence has been that it contains people with quite different strategic viewpoints on these issues without letting them become an excuse for sectarian division. In our Oakland chapter alone, we have people who are national leaders of third party efforts like the Independent Political Party Network (IPPN) which just had its national conference here, along with folks like myself who support working with the Progressive Caucus. While folks disagree on those issues, we work together on issues like fighting "welfare deform" or picketing the scab ships that came here from Liverpool.
There will be political fights within the Left but they should happen within a broader unified movement where the fight would matter for the rest of society, rather than being merely hot air in a conference room somewhere. As long as the Left prizes purity in organizational formation, it will remain marginal.
--Nathan Newman