Still a challenge is useful even if Carrol was not direct enough to pose it as a challenge.
At 12:23 11/11/99 -0600, he wrote:
>Here is Cockburn's reply to Doug. In it, I notice, Cockburn does
>explicitly express his " hopes of a populist coalition of left and right
on basic
>issues of liberty." It seems to me this is as much a pipedream as Chris
Burford's
>hopes for an alliance with progressive elements of the big bourgeoisie
The point I have argued is not that an alliance should be built with progressive sections of the big bourgeoisie. The point is that they can be temporary allies, to focus a particular campaign behind which an alliance of working people and progressive intellectuals can mobilise.
Marx described how the working class used the contradictions between the land owning class and the industrial bourgeoisie to get the 10 Hours Bill passed.
Carrol's latent sectarianism prevents him from recognising the mass potential of reformatory campaigns which take advantage of contradictions among the bourgeoisie to build alliances among working people.
It is no pipe dream. At Seattle there are contradictions between sections of capital that open the ground for reforms in the WTO. Against that context anarchists will be demonstrating on the streets, progressive organisations will be campaigning both from North and South, radical journalists will be probing. It will be fuzzy, and not everyone would agree with everyone on every point, but it will be a mass alliance.
Go back to your own grumpy and sour pipe dreams, Carrol, or argue the case out directly.
Chris Burford
London