(1) "To dismiss reform automatically (especially when we are in a period when reforms are being destroyed in favor or much worse in many cases) ..." This assumption is itself an Alterman trick of more or less deliberately caricaturing the opposition. It should be fairly clear from both Yoshie's and my posts that what we are talking about is *precisely* the battle for reforms, and mor specifically yet, the battle against the reactionary reforms of the Clinton Administration. (He won nomination by ordering the execution of a brain-damaged prisoner; he won plaudits for destroying welfare -- i.e., carrying out his campaign pledge -- from a member of the DNC in a WSJ ed page column.
That is, Clinton is the leader of the anti-reform forces in the U.S., and he is also the leader of the forces trying to reform progressive legislation from the past out of existence. Clinton is not a weak and/or wobbling friend of workers: he is the political leader of the Enemy. To defend Clinton is not an allowable option for anyone who cares to be considered a positive reformist.
(2) "Folks like Rorty want to emphasize that the Left cannot win without a majoritarian view . . ." Again, the issue is achieving the necessary reforms (or preventing further reactionary reforms of social security, medicaid, medicare, etc. As has usually been the case the task the leadership of the Democratic Party (and such Clinton lackeys as Katrina vanden Heuvel and Rorty) is to foreclose the possibility of mass struggle. (The ersatz Clinton healthcare campaign very effectively blocked off for the time being any mass mobilization for the only reform that will make a difference, some version of free medical care for the bulk of the population.)
What we need is mass struggle -- and no mass struggle (reformist or revolutionary or anything in between) has EVER been based on a majoritarian view. What mass struggle does is neutralize a majority of the population and isolate into a minority the overt defenders of reaction. Unless a mass struggle (based on these general principles) is developed in the next year or so Social Security is doomed.
Everything we know supports Alexander Cockburn's prediction that the aim of the Clinton administration in its final years would be the destruction of Social Security. As someone mentioned back in the spring of 1989, The Dukakis campaign represented a field day for conspiracy theorists. (The Dukakis campaign had very carefully sabotaged the one major gain of the Jackson campaign, the registration of hundreds of thousands of new voters.)
Carrol
Read Howard Zinn.