"Civil Society"

Gar W. Lipow lipowg at sprintmail.com
Wed May 13 08:03:54 PDT 1998


Louis Proyect wrote:


> One of the reasons I am so preoccupied with American Indian politics in the
> US is that they relate distinctly to these sorts of questions of what to do
> next. For example, the Blackfeet of Canada and the United States have
> declared a confederacy and this challenges the right of two powerful
> imperialist nations ruling over them to determine who is a citizen. This
> struggle does not involve guns or the question of state power, but it is
> one of the most decisive for the current period.
>
> By the same token, the Marxist current in the Teamsters Union have a big
> challenge in front of them. How do they counter Jimmy Hoffa Jr.'s bid for
> the presidency? If Hoffa wins, the class struggle in the US will be set
> back for years. In their strategy meetings, these Marxists will have very
> little use for questions such as those posed in April 1917.
>

It strikes me that in each of these cases Marxists (and anyone else who hopes for revolution in the long run) will face two questions. How do we win the immediate battle? And, without compromising the first, how do we fight in a way that also raises conciousness, and builds long term ties between movements?



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