>Tell me why a lot of the politics of long-run
>ecological catastrophe, indigenous peoples,
>race/gender/sexual orientation discrimination
>doesn't reduce to class-indifferent solutions
>(if not worse) or screaming into the wind.
>Being morally righteous and politically
>ineffectual. (Been there, done that.)
>
>If I thought it worked, I'd go for it, believe
>me. At the very least, it would be better for
>my career.
>
Max, you are not an activist. You are a policy wonk. Your politics go hand-in-hand with your occupation. The Economic Policy Institute is not evil. It just doesn't challenge the capitalist system.
I am a Marxist. Since I don't belong to an organization, I pick and choose my causes very carefully. The last time I was an activist was in the mid to late 80s when I supported the Central American revolution. If those revolutions had been successful, the cause of socialist revolution would have been advanced. It was a no-brainer for me.
I am getting involved in indigenous rights today because I have an analysis that the struggles of "peripheral" peoples today like the Navajo, the Mayan Indians in Chiapas, etc. has enormous consquences worldwide once they are generalized. I was trained to think this way by George Breitman, the American Trotskyist, whose pamphlet "How a Minority Can Change Society" explained how the black liberation movement can act as a fulcrum to move larger forces in society.
On top of everything else, I get involved in particular causes because I hate capitalist oppression. The indigenous peoples are being brutalized to an extent that no other people are. I liken what is happening to them to what was happening to the Jews in Germany. When genocide is happening in the country you live in, you have a responsibility to act. The genocide of 1998 might look different than the genocide of 1878 but it is genocide nonetheless.
Louis Proyect
(http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)